


gemelli utrique, morbosi pariter

by londonfalling



Series: the twin Castor and twin of Castor [5]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: 5+1 Things, Brother/Brother Incest, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, F/F, Incest, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, POV Outsider, Pining, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23681212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/londonfalling/pseuds/londonfalling
Summary: Lady falls in love and watches Dante fall apart, learn to cope and get better. Not necessarily in that order, though.Or: five times Lady shares a drink with Dante. (follows canon chronology from DMC 3 to 5)
Relationships: Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry), Lady/Trish (Devil May Cry), one-sided Arkham/Lady (Devil May Cry), one-sided Arkham/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Series: the twin Castor and twin of Castor [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1453129
Comments: 22
Kudos: 81





	1. i. Temen-ni-gru

**Author's Note:**

> As said, this thing follows canon continuity of the games (the anime, however, I know next to nothing about). 
> 
> The title is adapted from a Catullus poem (carmen 57). The translation I am going with here is "the both of them twins, equally afflicted".

This is a tale that will only get worse if left to run amok, she notes when the man she tries to run over with her bike dodges her with a showy backflip and manages to land on his feet. Her attempt is lukewarm at best, but it lets her know everything she has to and she hates this already. It's a tryhard.

Annoyance makes her halt close to the door. Show-offs are always a bad sign. And sure, this one practically oozes out the kind of stupid cock-sure energy that prevents him from simply stepping to the side and avoiding collision in a simpler and more reliable way. Moron: picking your fights is half the battle. For this type of idiot life is cheap; she couldn't care less if someone finds their existence meaningless and is enough of a coward to make others responsible for bringing it to an end, hire themselves a personal grim reaper or trick someone into it for naught, but the same recklessness applies to the lives of anyone around them. She is not a nameless number, a caption of fine print under a newspaper item of a raid or a treasure hunt or whatever gone wrong, so she lands to the side and fires Kalina Ann without looking back when he blubbers out something inane about crashing parties. He's welcome, she'll do it for free this time.

They guy does what people like him do. Sigh. Considering his earlier stunt, it's not like she seriously believes she'll hit him from this distance, not even with her excellent blind aim − no, it's a warning shot, a generous one at that. She just wants him to lay off. The stranger then refuses to react accordingly. Good balance and reflexes, poor judgement: he rides the missile like a skateboard, which is fitting for someone so immature. Unfortunately, his timing is sound too, so he doesn't stay with his vehicle to the bitter end and get squished like a bug. The bomb goes off; a wall explodes; the guy lets out an excited whoop.

Do another backflip and fall on your head, see if she cares.

There's no time for this. She gives him a final glare, hoping that he'll get the message if she writes it out for him with a crayon. Since he doesn't − he makes a dumb face and saunters closer only to pause and stay rooted to the spot when it finally dawns on him that she's trying to get to the door behind his back −, she changes plans. No way this will get resolved quickly. Men like him, they enjoy being contrary until they really get hurt. He will draw it out and take her time hostage with his antics and eventually cries like a girl when she lets him know she's not willing to play the only way he'll listen to. Pain has a way of making things simple and clear, even for these heroes.

Yeah, no. She's on a mission here.

As satisfying as it would be to hit him, she abandons the easy way in and takes the highway by driving through the hole the man punched into the building. While she doesn't see it, she just knows he watches her go, maybe makes another daft comment. With his injured ego, it's probably the only way he'll get to sleep at night; ugh, he'll likely jerk off to the memory as well. It's gross, but the again, she's had worse. If he comes after him, however, she won't be nearly as nice.

This is how they meet.

She has always hated those stories where a woman meets a man and suddenly her life is all changed. Usually the change in the point of view is literal: either the pair gets hitched and her universe narrows down to the kitchen and the bedroom while her kids grow up and see the world and her husband is always working or fucking his secretary or both. The wife abandons all her hopes and dreams to play a domestic goddess and to satisfy the needs of her jealous husband. Quaint. Or then they never become a postcard of a picture-perfect nuclear family and this forces a stay-true imprint on her as well − he has a family somewhere already or can't get over his fear of commitment until he ditches her for a younger and more gullible victim. Doesn't really matter. The woman spends all her years mourning a guy who never gives a shit about her or their maybe-children, just the ego boost and getting his dick wet, and she's one of the lucky ones if she eventually finds herself alone and alive at the end. It's bullshit but it's far too often true.

She hates that it's sort of how hers begins too. She owes him nothing, though, he's not her knight in shining armor and other questionable sartorial choices. It's not like she hasn't been fighting for ages to carve her own place in the world: she's a self-made woman, a person with a background and the starring role in her own tale. In that respect, everything stays the same. But she meets a man and her life does change. It's not because of him so there's no direct correlation, just the makings of a stupid cliché. She makes things better for herself after that, so maybe it stops stinging eventually.

Later, years after the first impressions have mostly faded on both sides, she's occasionally reminded of this brief meeting anyway. Nostalgia's a bitch. She remembers thinking he is a good-looking individual, but that's not anything to write home about, that's her noting that a vermin has a shiny outer shell before squashing it and blasting its brethren to bits with her guns. In the past, the thought flickers on and off within the space between two breaths. Looks are a line of defense and attack. She has weaponized hers, she looks attractive and gets the upper hand on the enemies who fail to realize she's no less dangerous for it. The guy would make a pretty stain; and then what? She's not looking for a quick fuck and she definitely doesn't have time for anyone patronizing. There are no damsels in distress, just bad writers who think someone's vulnerability means lack of an agenda.

She forgets about him.

\--

Her way through the tower is surprisingly painless. She'd expected wild goose chases for keys, solving magic puzzles, the usual spiel, but most doors fly open before her. It makes her suspicious, but she'll take the gift now and blow up the horse the second it starts moving. Anything too good to be true never comes without a price.

That doesn't mean the demons don't try to raise hell, though. There's plenty of them, but they seem sleepy and disorientated like they've just woken up from a long nap. Since the place seems ancient with its cobwebs and general state of deterioration, it's probably what's happened. None of them cause real trouble: no bosses, only swarms of lesser fiends. It's nice of them to gather in clusters − they're making her job easy for her. She's almost having fun.

The only true setback she meets is losing the motorbike early on. Such a rookie mistake: she gets too carried away with parrying the attacks of a few skeletons and their rusty scythes, ignoring a slow mook that's lugging around a coffin of sorts. It's not that she isn't aware of it being there and sneaking up on her. It's just very, very slow, and she doesn't expect it to be _blind_ as well. Still, it's her six and she should've dealt with it sooner. A loud crash shows her her error; the iron maiden collides with the bike and totals it effortlessly. She cusses and curses even after decimating the demons and continues by foot. There goes the last of her possessions. She's making good progress nevertheless, it's alright, this isn't about money, she keeps reminding herself.

After a while, it gets hard to judge how many floors there are left to climb. It makes sense to guess everything takes place at the top of the tower, so while the details of the happenings are fuzzy to her, she's confident in her plan. Where else would it be?

The room she finds herself in, now littered with empty husks of devils and shells of her ammo but otherwise containing merely some stone columns, has taken some damage. As a result, there's a gap in the wall. When she gets closer, the breeze of fresh air tells her it's actually the outer wall; nice and convenient.

Outside, the dusk clouds blot out the sun and make it hard to see in the dark. She walks to the edge of the ledge and takes a look. A sense of vertigo hits her; the world beneath her feet is obscured, but she seems to have just passed the middle point. Even from the distance, some wails can be heard from the ground level. It's senseless waste − everything that she expected from him.

She stops to take stock of her equipment. Sitting on a large piece of stone with her back to the chasm, she re-ties the laces of her boots, reloads and lets her poise relax for a brief moment, secure in having a good vantage point. It's going better than anticipated, even with the bad start. Naturally, because she knows Arkham much, much better than she'd like, all it does is make her wary. Nothing worthwhile is ever too easy, she thinks as she gets up to head back to work.

Ah. Speak of the devil.

“Well, well,” his booming voice purrs from behind her back, no greetings necessary. She startles. There is nothing but a long fall there: there's no way to get to the spot by human means and without her noticing it. His _research_ has been successful, then. She wants to spit on the ground, or preferably in his face, but her throat gets dry and her pulse rappelling inside it is wild and painful. The involuntary reactions are natural, it's her body doing its job when a predator got the jump on her. It's alright, it's okay, she's got it, just breathe and aim.

She knew it'd come to this. Hard to kill someone with your own hands if you never get to meet them, after all. Just… not so soon. Not yet.

The barrel of her gun meets him before her eyes do. The face she's aiming at has changed and looks the same, a nightmare come to life. New scars won't hide how he's nothing but a skull underneath a thin layer of skin. Bash out the brains and he's just bone and dead tissue. He's lethal, likely more so than ever, and yet he's also decaying rapidly; there's every reason to be afraid, but her boogeyman is dying and she's stronger than her fear.

“You've grown stronger” Arkham slithers, mirroring her thoughts back at her. It's the same tone he'd use to call her beautiful, branding her like a cow, to be a copy of her mother, his. She's not amused about the fact that he's implying he has been watching her for god knows how long either. Not unexpected, though.

“Go to hell,” she gives her first and final warning. When she pulls the trigger − and she knows it'll come to that −, she won't be playing.

Arkham ignores her threats and keeps mocking her for pointing a gun at her “kin”. He lost the right to that claim ages ago. “Your dear papa,” he says. Like she's a child and he could force her call him anything he wanted. Father. Papa. Eventually, she suspects, it would have been “husband”.

Yes, she had loved him as Mary. Yes, Mary had a father and a mother and she'd loved them. Mary had a little lamb and she's gone and all she has now is her hate.

She gets angry. It's infuriating to admit. Not unexpected. There's nobody like him, only he can make her lose it with a few words because he's the one who's made them hurt. There's no one else in the world, just the two of them, the metal of her gun pressing against her fingers sharp and cold even through the leather of her gloves. Yes, she's had enough.

She pulls.

Her bullets soar into thin air. This close, she can't miss. It's true − he's not entirely human anymore. He must be happy, so goddamn proud of himself.

“You break my heart,” Arkham croons. His gnarring voice is seemingly coming from everywhere. Her pulse ticks furiously. _You break my heart_ when she refuses to dress up in her mother's dress. _You break my heart_ when she's beaten black and blue and is swallowed up by the folds of silk, a hand caressing her temple and brushing against the bruise and skin it has created. When she gets her hands on him, she tells herself, she breathes and spins and searches for him frantically, when she gets her hands on him, she'll break his face and drive the bayonet through his chest but won't be finding a heart within. Where is he?

“After all, it was I who gave you your name.”

Where is he?

There isn't still anything around her so there's only one option, no matter how crazy it sounds. Her guns find him standing on the ceiling − like a pillar or a fucking bat. Without batting an eye, he keeps going. “My darling daughter,” Arkham says. Oh, she's his daughter now, is she.

She's flustered and wants to throw up. She's got to do it, now, shoot.

He makes a rictus because he forgot how to smile when he butchered her mother. The expression is one of the ugliest things she's ever seen, and she's seen it all. Somehow, this is going wrong, she manages to think before it truly does.

Arkham drops the book he's been carrying on her face, not forcibly enough to break her nose but enough to offset her balance. Her fingers twitch in vain − she gets it, she's too late.

The next thing she knows, her left wrist is crushed in his grip and she has no time to pull it free. Without delay, he flings her over the edge as if she didn't weigh anything at all. It happens faster than she can really realize, but her instincts are screaming and her focus falters but doesn't shatter. She keeps firing at him the entire time because if she's to die today, she'll take him with her. Despite everything, it's almost a relief when she loses the sight of him.

She falls.

The plunge is long enough that she could devise a plan.

She's not going down like this.

She could − no, the grapple hook won't work, the walls are to smooth and she can't aim like this.

Kalina Ann − she'll use it to --

Her fall stops short. There's suddenly a violent tug running through her whole body and a bolt of agony in her ankle. It empties her lungs and disorientates her for a long second, making it difficult to find out what's happening. When the daze resides a bit, she realizes she's lunged out of the frying pan straight into the fire.

It's the guy in red. He's caught her and is holding her body with one hand, painting a curious expression on his face. It's fake. He's a fake.

This isn't something a human could do.

Damn it. It's a demon.

There goes her hope. No way she'll be able to kick its feet under it without being tossed back into the abyss. She curses her rotten luck and thanks her quick reflexes that have already pointed her weapons at the foe that's apparently very intent on being meddlesome.

It jokes about the situation in spite of the guns immediately shoved at its mug. Inconsequential drivel, but it's delivered as if it's trying to hit on her. In reality, it only sounds like what it is, the thing trying to ridicule her. It's a fraud in every aspect. Not a real person, incapable of feelings, bad at imitation.

“Let me go,” she warns it out of courtesy and dizziness. It's unpleasant to dangle upside down at someone else's mercy and have your blood pack into your head.

The creep doesn't quit yapping at her.

Fine. She prefers to take her chances. She shoots it in the brain, it drops her and falls backwards. She knew that would happen but is still sorry it won't be falling down too. Then she has no time to spare for trivial annoyances.

Instead, she saves herself by hitting the wall with Kalina Ann and wedging it deep into it. Fuck − the recoil of it hurts like hell. It's good, it tells she's still here and human. Hanging onto her launcher and trying to gather her breath, she's interrupted by the demon again. It takes a peek at her over the ledge. What an idiot. She delivers another bullet in its head, wishing it was silver. This gives her time to get on top of her gun and get a better aim at the hostile. She perches on her only lifeline and counts how the seconds pass.

When it reappears, it's donning a couple of holes in its forehead. As a marksman, she's a little proud. The look it throws down at her is incredulous; then its expression turns blank and it leaves her be. Not used to getting rejected, huh? At least it got the message. For now.

Back on firm ground, she rubs her wrist once, then never does it again.

\--

As the day progresses and things get progressively more fucked up, she has to acknowledge him, it, _it_. It's a demon, basically an animal. The only thing worse than a man who has no sense of boundaries and enough entitlement to think she'd give him the time of the day merely because he exists. It's not even a despicable human so she doesn't kick it in the nuts when it gets into her personal space. It'd probably enjoy it, the freak.

When the giant whale that had been floating around the tower drops at her feet dead, she knows to expect trouble and isn't all that surprised to see the demon cut its way through the giant red eye. The smell is disgusting and the devil is drenched in blood. Looks are deceiving: these are its true colors, no matter how much it tries to shake it all off in front of her and her weapon, fixed at the back of its head.

“Wait,” she commands. She's not ashamed to admit she's out of her element here with all this demon bullshit. It'll give her some explanations if she makes it.

“If you're asking for a date, forget it,” it says and tries to swat her gun away half-heartedly. She's so sorry she apparently wounded its pride by refusing to beg it for help a while back. It would explain why there's something off about it, why it's so downtrodden; its voice is flatter and hollow and its eyes are harder, no cries of excitement now. Oh, poor thing. It's upset and having a bad day. It should man up and find its balls, if it's even got them − she's not interested in what kind of configurations these mongrels have in their pants.

She should be more careful with her thoughts.

Just one throwaway look at her chest and she's back to the house and the bed and the darkness, listening to how heavy his breathing gets when he stands in the doorway and neither of them believes she's asleep. The next day, she cuts her long hair off with scissors meant for freeing happy animal shapes from sheets of colorful paper. Afterwards, he hits her in the face. She knows next time he'll lick the blood away so she never gives him the chance to do it again.

It was one of the last things she had been given by her mother, her hair that ran down to her hips. Like the bonnet of some fucking Little Red Riding hood, hah. When she saw the strands of it lying lifeless on the floor at her feet like her mother's, she could tell her childhood, such as it was, had truly ended. She had cut them off and severed her last connections to a normal life. Sometimes she wonders if Arkham knew what he created. She who fights monsters will become one herself, after all.

This demon looks at her chest and thinks it knows something, that it has her all read.

It's not an ally. It will have no power over her. It will only make her angrier.

“Date a demon? I'm not that desperate,” she says viciously. Its mouth ticks.

They're interrupted and get into a fight with other demons. The creature's not useless in this, even if it keeps asking her stupid questions out of habit. They're both aware it doesn't need to call her anything because they're neither fighting each other nor not-fighting − they're temporarily on the same side, purely out of convenience. If its tone was clearly mocking earlier, now it's talking just to make noise. She doesn't give a damn why; maybe she caused it, maybe she didn't, it's all the same to her.

Despite all the swagger, the thing is quick to dump everything on her. “I'll leave this to you!” it yells and enters the building.

Pitiful. Good riddance.

\--

Lady. Running through the halls of the tower, she thinks about names.

“Whatever, lady.”

Lady.

She's infuriated she actually likes the title so she steals it. She likes to weaponize what's used to demean and belittle her because nobody expects it from her. She already has plenty of aliases, of course − she needs IDs and that's what business demands. No one is interested in buying the kind of service she provides from a woman at first, not until her fame carries enough weight. She started off with a male one, then switched to a generic demon hunter codename when word of her competence had gotten around and most of her clients had stopped making a show of getting a young female to solve their problems. Now, she could make Lady work. 

It's not like this creature understands things like that, what it feels like to have things stolen from you. Real monsters don't feel the sense of loss even if they're capable of greed, like Arkham or this irritating little worm tailing her. The latter clearly wants something here and she has no idea what that could be. It bothers her; unknown quantities pose a risk she's not happy to take. 

At least what Arkham wants is clear. He stole her family, her mother's time, her intact skin, even her eyes. Kalina Ann was known for her beautiful grey eyes − never mind anything worthwhile that made her the woman she was, her fearless personality and overwhelming empathy for those who never deserved to have a drop of it, her passion for making every possible thing by hand. They saw a beautiful woman making pretty, useless trinkets and laughed with warm condescension, just like they see a pretty, useless trinket and a pretty, useless thing when they see her wearing the necklace her mother crafter for her. Never mind the amulet utilizes crystallized demon blood or something like it to alert her against the presence of the same beasts it was made of. It's a stupid thing to cry after when she's got real problems, but she hates to see her own colors replaced by his when she looks in a mirror, as if the hair and the markings he has carved in her aren't enough. The bluish green from his original eyes, the man he once was or at least pretended to be. The red from his inhuman experiments with blood, the sort of fake-deep shit she detests.

The other scars, like the bullet wound on her lower thigh, she wears with pride, even though she is ashamed to have been hit. They're hers, a result of her own victories and mistakes. When this is over, she'll be able to do that with the old marking too. She overcomes and makes them into trophies.

Some nights are still bad. She wakes up and feels shackles and hands pinning her wrists down. She feels a needle digging into her eyeball and a thick viscous liquid spreading inside her head. She doesn't cry but her tears burn nevertheless.

“My darling Mary.”

The nightmare ends today, she'll make sure of that. She'll kill it before it kills her.

\--

Again, her barrel meets the back of the demon in red. This time, she wastes a warning shot.

Lady finds the piece of shit that's supposed to be her father killed, lying at the brute's feet. A stripe of blood under him tells her he's been stabbed. The broadsword the creature is lugging around jeers at her: she's too late.

It's too late.

She questions him. She's denied a straight answer. Fucking bastard − _this means something_. She attacks it, wants to hurt it even when she knows she can't.

It seems glad for the distraction, plays along, refuses to shut up and get serious.

She's no match against it. This is clear from the start but doesn't stop her. She has to take the disappointment out on something, the grief of losing. It was her hit, the only personal one she'll ever have. It has no idea what it took from her, and so she shoots and jumps and keeps getting up from the floor. Lets it know that it'll never be a human even if it tries to look like one, like it obviously tries to, because it can't understand what it has done to her.

We have something in common, it says.

I have a dysfunctional family too, it says.

It's useless. It won't get even that. This is useless.

It's disappointed when she stops and lets it go. Her pain won't be its entertainment; it leaves to do whatever it's here for and she doesn't ask. She doesn't care.

Then she's alone.

\--

Arkham speaks. Her hands shake. She sets out to kill another devil, finds another purpose.

\--

_You're such a sweet child, just like your mother._

She tries to ignore what hearing that does to her. Darling Mary, an image of his wife with her eyes and hair and clothes. Which is the mother, which is the daughter? But it's not him, her father or her blood, it's the corruption whispering at him. Sickness, not an innate fault. It doesn't undo anything but it's not them, so she'll get their revenge. 

Vergil.

\--

Vergil is the blue to the red of its twin. With their swords clashing and raised against each other, they are a perfect reflection; for a moment, Lady halts and sees how they dance on their own blood to a rhythm she can't hear but still senses. They're so close that the blades seem like an afterthought − they fight like they want to tear one another apart by their nails and teeth, but every move is mirrored back so precisely that it looks effortless and natural, almost drowning out the bloodthirsty desperation of it all. For a moment, it looks beautiful.

Neither of them breaks their eye contact to even glance at her when she fires Kalina Ann. Vergil dodges the missile with a flick of its katana and they share an annoyed look when they actually come to realize they've been interrupted. The demon she's not chasing tells her to go away, finally dropping the act and abandoning any attempt to sound mocking.

They're back at it before Lady can reach them. When the red one parries an attack, Lady catches a glimpse of its eyes. It's alive in a way it wasn't before, but above all, it's afraid. It's the first sincere emotion she's seen the demon express.

Guided by her hatred, Lady tries to close the distance between her and her target. She's flung to the ground so easily she's not sure how it happens. She blocks the mean-looking sword with her gun and screams at Vergil, who looks contemplative for a second until it turns its back on her like she's not worth the effort of focusing and making an actual swing at her. Its single-minded focus is back on its kin in a flash. More blood is shed; they forget the steps and still make each other bleed in synch.

“Is that what you think?”

Lady is left to bite her teeth and wait for an open, trying to swallow the doubt.

It turns out she doesn't have to.

\--

It's Arkham. It's always been him.

\--

Lady is, once again, merely a sacrifice to him. Good girl, pure and innocent, just like her mother. When he pierces her thigh with the bayonet, she wants to yell how she got rid of her _purity_ the first chance she got so that he'd never be able to take it as well, but she won't give him the satisfaction. 

Shapeshifting, inhuman strength, spellbreaking, Sparda being a real demon. Nothing surprises her anymore.

“Don't be a bad girl, Mary, or you can expect a spanking from daddy later!”

Her head hurts. She can't feel her leg. She tries to focus on something else than her body.

The way Arkham forces himself deep into Vergil's personal space and fondles its fancy Japanese sword tells her a thing or two. He's found himself another pretty little thing to toy with. She doesn't feel any pity for the devil and sure as hell doesn't want to wonder how far he's gone with this victim. She swallows blood.

The ritual is successful. Arkham is raised above the clouds; the world crumbles around her.

The red demon stops her fall for the second time. She accepts the hand because she needs a ladder and time is running out. It still doesn't understand anything.

She's back to where she started. She must kill him.

\--

The way up is painful. Her makeshift bandage doesn't do much to stop her from bleeding. She'll survive if she stops, takes time to patch herself up and gets rest. She climbs and climbs and climbs.

Lady crawls inside the first window she comes across, leans against a bookcase and pants. It can't end like this.

She tries to stop the demon when it predictably follows her. It threatens her to drop her weapons because it has for some reason decided to do the deed itself. She's delirious and hurting and goes all out on her stubborn foe, knowing it'll cost her a lot, maybe even the leg. Since the thing's pretty shaken too, she's able to draw it out longer than she's imagined.

She empties her gun one last time and doesn't even hit it anymore. The empty clip doesn't prevent her from clicking the trigger feverishly when it creeps closer. Do your worst, she thinks and holds her trembling chin up. _You_ can't hurt me.

She's pressed against the rack; the demon corners her almost gently. The gesture is flirty and intimidating in nature, but her aggressor is merely going through the motions, too tired to convince itself that it believes it means it.

“I'll take care of him,” it says quietly. Neither of them knows exactly who he's talking about. It moves its mouth closer to her face, and it seems to be deriding itself as much as her.

“Why do you care so much?” Lady asks. It's a moment of weakness for her, she might as well poke the dragon to see if she can make it tick too. When the demon speaks, its voice twists at the words “my brother” and she knows she's succeeded, even when it ridicules her for the thousandth time by claiming it wants to stop Arkham and Vergil's apotheosis because of her.

She gives it Kalina Ann and takes its name. When it replies, she freezes for a second.

Dante.

Can't be.

But it explains a lot.

It isn't the name the legendary demon hunter uses, but this is Lady's playground. She's in the know, she has connections, she hears the rumors. Every person in the business that's worth anything has heard of _the_ hunter. The general consensus is that he or she changes aliases like socks and does all kinds of jobs to throw any tracers off. But all the big ones, the impossible ones, carry the same signatures if you know how to look for them. She thought she'd track the legend someday.

Dante. Huh. Lady gives it the gun.

She doesn't know if this is a creature that's capable of killing its own kin, if it wants to, but if she can do anything to convince it, she'll do it. “Dante, please free my father,” she pleads and wonders is emotional manipulation ever works on these freaks. She's not above it.

It's worth a shot.

\--

Eventually, she kills him. She cries. She hasn't killed her past but she's carved herself a future with the bullet lodged deep inside his head, his life flowing out of his bashed skull and broken body until it's nothing but blood.

Father. The monster that took everything away from her. Just a weak little man, too crippled to protect himself. She wanted a fight and now he's taken even that from her. He'd be dead even if she didn't snuff him out. For the last time, she is Mary and he is her father. This is their family. She laughs.

She kills him.

The less said about that, the better. She's free − it'll feel like a victory tomorrow.

Takes a while to get used to it.

\--

The plan fails. She's at last taking a moment to rest and figure out how to go about the cleanup when the red demon stumbles back to earth.

She's exterminated a fair share of leftovers already, but it's far from over, Lady thinks and tries to estimate how long her ammo will last. What time is it? There's so much ash in the air that it's painted the sky gray. She can hear how a building collapses somewhere. What a shitshow.

Suddenly, there's movement behind her back. It's got to be some kind of devil crap: there's nothing there but a mountain of rubble. Her gun greets a now familiar figure.

“What an ordeal,” the demon notes flatly, acknowledging her with a little nod. The tone is as colorless than the one it used back in the library when it promised to “take care” of things.

The other demon is dead, then. Good.

These creatures − the devils, Arkham − are so fucking selfish they never realize there's always going to be collateral damage. Actions have consequences, a child knows that, knew that. Her father never sacrificed a human, he murdered three and then some. This thing seems to have woken up to this only now that it's lost something that means anything to it personally. Though luck. It'll either learn its lesson or kill itself, which honestly should be the same thing as far as she's concerned. If it'll keep going the way its sibling had, she'll go after it and slay it herself.

It gets closer to where Lady's standing. Then it stands there empty handed and seems to be having trouble with just existing. It probably couldn't harm her like this, but she keeps an eye on it while she lowers her handgun reluctantly. There's something pained in it that she recognizes, the expanding emptiness that that'll blow up into ugly panic eventually. The… helplessness.

She hasn't planned this either. The after is a brave new world.

It's carrying Kalina Ann on its back. Frankly, she didn't think it would return it and was ready to lose it. The launcher might be named after her mother, but it's just a weapon, even if it's a very good one. She won't be getting carried away by thinking sentimentally about something her life depends on. It's nice to see it again anyway.

“You're still here?”, it says dumbly while clutching her gun. Lady holds back and doesn't ask where else it thinks she'd be. She'll only waste her breath if she makes an attempt to teach it anything about humans. Most people are unable to defend themselves from these beasts. She can do that and she hates them − where else she'd be.

“I need that back,” she says.

“Right,” it replies. It makes no move to hand it over.

“Don't just stand there,” she says. Kinslayer or not, she's not coddling it.

It makes an unfunny joke while finally doing what it's told. She pretends she doesn't hear how deflated it sounds because she's still generous like that and doesn't need the awkwardness.

They survey the desolate landscape and chat about the hordes making a comeback. There's no sign of the previous facetious veneer; she's glad. They've both seen too much today.

When she glances at the hunter next to her to determine if she could bring up the topic of its reputation, maybe ask some questions, talk shop, it parts its lips and lets out a tiny mute sound.

It's −

“Are you crying?” Lady asks. She tests the ice with the tip of her foot, already fully prepared to step on it.

She doesn't feel bad. Why would she? It is a victim of its circumstances that Lady's only related to by a tangent that has now been cut off for good; they could even be of its own making, who knows, who cares? Lady doesn't want its biography, its sob story, its burdens. She's a complete stranger that feels uncomfortable to be caught in such an intimate moment − just like anyone would, except she's smart enough to know when she's trapped and guilt-tripped. Her first survival instinct tells it to fuck off because she's not fooled by displays of its emotions any more than by the bravado and words it keeps using to cover up how lost it is deep down.

But this is not how demons behave.

Devils never cry.

This is not how a predator behaves.

It's not drawing attention to it. It denies it when she presses the matter, blames the nonexistent rain, turns away and lashes out at the demons that try to creep up on them with action that's too frantic, empty boasts, excessive use of force − a missile launched against a fly. It doesn't take the bait she offers it: maybe somewhere out there even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one, don't you think? _Go on, take the floor, try to get me to pity you and tell me your sorry little history_. _Make me sad, get my defenses down, use me._

It doesn't. Maybe, it says, ignoring the shot it's given. It shouts like it's surprised its voice doesn't break and cleaves at the hostiles as if it's afraid of what happens when it's supposed to put its weapons down.

Its face is otherwise annoying and perfect, but the eyes are dead. When it turns them to her, they look through the veil of hair that's fallen over them in the fray. The full-body flinch that follows seems genuinely involuntary. She watches how it raises its hand to its face, how its muscles tense and how it stares at it long enough that the hysteria bleeds into its fingers, makes them tremble − how it inhales violently and rakes the hand through its hair to push it back like a human would yank off a blade in the leg, then pulls the strands back to the front. Neither shape seems to fit it. It does it again, lets go, allows the hair to fall over its forehead on its own. Lady feels detached. The pair of scissors in one of the pockets hanging on her belt is burning a hole through the fabric.

No, this demon is something else. This is your new reality, she wants to say but doesn't. Get used to it or you've lost the game. That's how it goes, always, and she doesn't feel bad for it because it won't change anything. Instead, she takes it up on the offer it throws at her without any initial intention to follow it through − she leans on the last wall standing while it rummages through the ruins of its digs for a bottle and even a pair of glasses and climbs after it to sit on top of another ruined building. While it pours their first drinks, she inspects the wasteland beneath their feet so that she won't notice it spilling the whiskey as if already drunk. The destruction has bought Lady her revenge; while she's not responsible for it, she downs her glass with the surviving brother, allows it to fill it again. She's not in a hurry anymore.

So, Lady meets a guy and her life changes. What she doesn't realize immediately is that it isn't the beginning of her tragedy.

Dante, however, is another story. He's in the middle of his instead.


	2. ii. Mallet Island

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been replaying DMC 1 because of my long Dante fic anyway, so I guess this is a good time to do an update.

This partnership of theirs and how it comes about − it's stupid, like most things in their lives, but while she can laugh all she wants, it's undeniable that “their lives” somehow becomes a thing. As much as she'd like to claim innocence and blame the other party, she's at fault too, which means she's stupid as well. With the company she keeps it's practically a requirement, isn't it? She'll deal.

Here's a handy process diagram of the trainwreck. Once upon a time, a lady meets a guy. They clash and butt heads over instant, mutual animosity, cross swords both in words and with guns and make some unenthusiastic attempts at homicide and flirting. In the end they're still conveniently united against a common enemy. Well, almost common and there are several enemies; it's complicated since real life rarely fits into the frames of a fairy tale. Anyway, they're the only ones left standing when the dust settles: where to now, they ask and note the question is a shared one. The solution isn't as obvious as it might appear post-trade. Ultimately, their individual stories have different conclusions even with the superficial similarities. Lady is successful in her quest by killing a relative of hers and considers survival a bonus, whereas Dante fails by having to slaughter his brethren and is alive in spite of himself. They could part ways when it's all said and done − the circumstances bringing them together have ceased to exist and neither of them is looking for the romantic “all's well that ends well” that might be expected of them after the hassle.

The slightly cracked glass in her hand, reflecting her drunken perplexity and lack of plans back at her, is the first sign of the development. Lady knows nothing about tomorrow today and it's a blessing that she doesn't have to. Freedom is a strange state of mind, it tastes like dried fruits and has a strong alcohol burn. There is merely a morsel of idle curiosity in her when she swirls her nth serving, the brandy, around, so it's difficult to imagine that this is where they'll come back to time and time again, that the creature pinning her to a bookcase is going to be a permanent fixture in her tale. But shit happens sometimes and only some of the accidents are happy. She winds up where she is by choice.

Lady meets a demon. She finds… something. Someone.

She also gets to keep her leg, which is a plus. 

\--

In hindsight, accepting drinks offered by a demonic stranger isn't the most sensible choice she's ever made. It never was a good idea, no use defending herself by harping on Dante for picking the wrong beverages. She reserves the right to complain a bit nevertheless. The spirits they inhale while watching the sun slowly shed the shroud of soot obscuring it are typically high in alcohol, fine. She gets a bite indeed: damn, it's a hell of a lot meaner than expected, a proper overkill. Bottles keep coming, and while Dante guzzles down most of them, the boozing leads to Lady blacking out at some point. While she is being far more careless than she can afford, it's not the biggest leap of faith she takes with him.

The hangover eventually wakes her up with a swift kick in the head. It's a warm welcome to her new situation, all things considered. She hasn't been murdered, robbed or molested, she thinks as she rolls over to notice the reason for the miracle. Having dismantled his coat to fashion a makeshift blanket for her, Dante's still there, looking at the now visible skyline like it's promised to explain in detail why everything's gone wrong for him. There's a deliberate, careful distance between them. For some reason, she sticks around.

They're both alone and in varying states of shock. The difference is that she's happy despite the initial conflicted emotions. The big bad wolf is dead by her hand, and that's the end of that. The curtain falls; mother has been avenged, her liberty is restored, she's her own heroine and lives, finis. Now it's just a matter of getting to her happily ever after, and honestly, she has no idea how to go about that. It's maddening to admit her life's been revolving around a rotten man for years. That's not the entire truth, she thinks vehemently − she did it for herself, she's been training, growing stronger and pushing herself to her limits because it's useful. But, her headache reminds her, she's also spent so much time imagining this moment and sacrificed so much for it that she has no safety net to fall into.

The truth is, Lady's at crossroads. Every direction around her is unfamiliar, but it makes her feel better when she can literally smell how much worse Dante has it. Mind you, it smells of obvious alcoholism. She's not a nice person, she uses him, he doesn't care. At some point down the line, they click. It works.

At first, her actions are driven by practical concerns. Tracking Arkham and getting prepared was insanely expensive. Lady sold everything she owned to buy intel and supplies. She's got no place of her own anymore, just the clothes on her back and her weapon collection that's diminished to what she can carry − ah, she recalls the bike's gone too. It's the streets then, and they aren't kind to someone like her. Sure, she can hold her ground better than most against anything, but it's impossible to rest when she's got to sleep with one eye open for the first hint of trouble. It's no wonder she jumps at the chance that present itself in the shape of Dante the demon hunter in the beginning; the later stages require more explaining.

It's not that easy in reality, of course. Since the walls of his office have come down somehow, Dante's kind of homeless too. They quickly conclude his bureau is a lost cause: there's no fixing the building without constructing a new one on the spot.

“This is pretty thorough demolition. What happened?” she asks and kicks a pile of rubble that may have been a bearing wall. The tower alone didn't cause this, that's certain.

Dante's explanation of the events isn't very helpful. “I sneezed at it,” he says and gestures vaguely at the ruins.

He could at least have the decency to pick a more convincing lie. It's a theme with him, she learns.

“Right. Just so you know, I don't find you being a demon with demonic powers and strength and crap amusing at all,” she says.

Dante glances at her mutely. Shaking his head at something, he salutes the debris and bids final goodbye to his home. Lady approves: it doesn't seem like he's given it too much sentimental value.

“Mm, me neither. Hey, want to get introduced to someone?”

It turns out they already have mutual acquaintances; some would call them meeting destiny, Lady calls it their world being a sad little circle jerk. Dante takes them to Morrison and begs the man to arrange him new headquarters. Morrison shrugs apologetically at Lady and her indignation. He's well-aware she's been interested in the (in)famous huntsman but never told her he dealt with him so personally. “What can I say? A gentleman's got to keep his promises, and besides, it's bad praxis to talk too much in this industry. You're a smart one, you would've gotten it someday.” He makes it up somewhat by being helpful.

They end up christening the new apartment with booze. What else would they do. Lady finds herself on the floor afterwards, circled by a mountain of cardboard boxes and an actual blanket thrown haphazardly over her body. She has distant memories of telling Dante about her living conditions and feels glad it's probably the most embarrassing she got. Fortunately, they aren't the kind of drunks that bond over shitty autobiographies, so she gets to keep some of her dignity.

“You can bunk here if you want to,” her host says nonchalantly while searching for a painkiller. He's got a lot of garbage for someone who doesn't seem to need anything. “I've got no use for the spare room. Just pull your weight at the jobs and I don't mind.”

She accepts the pill and refuses the offer. Dante doesn't get upset at her being so ungrateful or whatever.

“Your loss.” Right. As she is about to witness over and over again, he can't help himself and leave well enough alone.

He makes another suggestion. “Come to think of it, I happen to have cash on me now. I can lend you some and you can pay me back by working with me for a while. Interested?”

No, Lady isn't thrilled to be tied down by a debt when she's just freed herself from one yoke. She's got to think of the big picture, though: what are the alternatives? The sum is not that high and the apartment she gets with it is dinghy, drafty and hers. She hangs around the base of operations often anyway, but in her tiny hole of a flat she has her freedom and is less dependent on Dante's continuing goodwill than by boarding with him.

Speaking of the agency − Dante renovates the place with frantic energy and makes it livable only to trash it when his depression takes a turn for the worse. Contrary to the popular belief, it doesn't start with skulls pinned on the walls and the plaster crumbling away, although it's true that the more professional and pleasant look can't last. Dante's soon forced to acknowledge he's much like his former office in terms of stability, beyond salvaging. Before that, the cycle repeats itself a couple of times and she watches it unfold like a spectator sport. Build something up to tear it down, exercises in madness. To each their own. 

One day, she comes to deliver him his latest payment and finds out he's gotten some neon lights installed above the front door. “Devil May Cry,” she says to him as a greeting. Dante flinches and deflects by picking up the phone and ordering them pizzas. It's probably the first time he's eaten in a week.

When he finally gives up and lets _DMC_ become the sty it's meant to be, he doesn't get any less manic. The objects of his focus change, the disordered behavior remains. Lady suspects he doesn't sleep much, merely takes these little power naps and then either works or distracts himself with his pastime activities until exhaustion compels him to hit the hay again. As a half-breed he can probably dick around like that with no lasting physical damage.

And yet. A real crash has to come, she remembers thinking at the time. Soon, most likely, since this is not sustainable by any means. In retrospect, she underestimates him. Dante's dysfunctionality is a well-oiled machine that's been chugging long before she set foot in his weekdays; she's technically correct in predicting a collapse, but it happens because things actually find a way of getting worse, not because of Dante running out of steam.

\--

“Settling down” has never been a part of Lady's vocabulary or her plans for the future, as nebulous as they've been. The tunnel vision she's had going on for so long has basically made her concentrate on killing Arkham and killing Arkham only, so whatever would happen next has always been of little interest to her − if she survived that, she could survive anything, so why worry? If she had thought about it, she'd likely have guessed the legend of Lady and the tramp would consist of her bailing once the debt has been repaid and never looking back. She would have been wrong.

Dante gets them champagne and is more jumpy than usual for a week after the last settlement of the loan. Then he adapts, stops expecting she'll walk out within the next five minutes. This is the only instance of him getting character development between ages nineteen and thirty or so. 

As time goes by, Lady still isn't in a hurry to get on the road again. As trippy as it is, she can always come up with more reasons to stay than go, and the former multiply when weeks become months and years. She tells herself not to get too comfortable and thinks she succeeds in keeping a reasonable distance, for which she should also be thanking Dante the hermit, but the bottom line is that when she searches for a date in the note he has left her and feels something foreboding chocking her, it's almost ten years later and she's changed along with her circumstances.

The main thing she'd blame is their co-operation being so lucrative. Compared to her former enterprises, she's not overstating anything by calling it a goldmine. Astoundingly, they make quite the team once the engine starts running and they get used to reading each other's moves. Before long Dante, confused about her not taking a hike but cool with her presence, lets her tag along to any mission she pleases and is careful to hand over her split. Given that he gets a decent amount of traffic, takes whatever bullshit people throw at his way and has some compulsions to feed, they're very productive.

On top of that, the benefits bleed into her private business ventures. The hunter of hunters has contacts everywhere, well beyond what she'd imagined possible. He is too antisocial to utilize them properly, which frustrates her until she gets herself involved. Dante has no qualms about her abusing them, so they're hers now, at her disposal as well as his, and her reach grows gradually until their underworld seems like a giant spiderweb and she's sitting in the middle of it. She wants something, she can make it happen. It's exciting, satisfying. She won't ever become powerless again.

Then there are the reasons that are more directly related to Dante and his person, ugh. Lady confesses that part of it is demon hunting being plain _fun_ more often than not when he's on the case. She recognizes his work in the stories that circulate around, and while there is plenty of hot air there, many of the details she'd deemed implausible turn out to be true. Although it boggles the mind that the untidy hobo in his ratty boxers is a son of the knight Kalina Ann liked to tell her about, he deserves the titles he's been given.

The first time she gets to observe Dante fighting without interruptions is a moment of reflection. They're facing a gigantic fiery reptile she refuses to call a dragon and a pack of its offspring some months after they got together. The beast is the strongest she's ever run into and she's curious to see where this is going. They split up without having to exchange a word, which leaves the smaller animals to Lady and the grand prize to him. The critters are disposed of quickly: the spikes and sharp claws make them look more dangerous than they truly are. Lady is cleaning her bayonet and cursing gastric acids when it occurs to her she could give him a hand. Instead, she leans back.

There's no reason for Dante to be serious with this fiend. That could be said about any foe she's seen with him so far, barring his twin and possibly Arkham. Even though he does things like unconsciously stumping cigarettes on his bare arms, these tell-tale displays of self-neglect and lazy masochism, he's painfully aware of his limits and thus isn't actively suicidal. He can easily pull off the aloof attitude even with a high demon like this. Giving her a loan instead of buying new toys to test out means it's just him, his old broadsword and the twin guns that never need a refill. In other words: while it takes the slightest bit of effort unlike their previous duo missions, from his point of view it's a forgettable, relatively minor scuffle.

This is not what Lady sees. She can point out the demonic influence but also the raw talent and years of honing the skills that are now put to use. Dante in action is a thing of beauty. She's captivated by the fluidity of him switching between the blade and the firearms in the middle of a fluid leap; his impeccable timing, the way he weaves his counterattacks into aggressive defense; the dexterity required to maneuver the steel so precisely in a manner that looks so spontaneous; how he taunts his target playfully while dodging the fire, reactive, responsive; how effortless this is for a person to whom simple existing seems like an insurmountable pain at times. In a battle, he doesn't stumble over his own limbs − he interrupts a blow that would cleave him into two should it land, knows what's coming better than the aggressor itself, steals the attack and makes it his, uses the impact to guide his sword to the neck of the creature and beheads it smooth as water. Bathing in the blood spurting from the severed veins, he turns and gives her a nearly genuine grin. Guts and glory.

In some imaginary parallel world, it might be easy to fall for him. She can see it happening. It would be complicated. They don't have to be.

In this one, Lady watches and admires but the spark is weak, she'll kill it. This tentative relationship they have going on, one she is hesitant to name, is worth more to her as is. She smiles back and means it.

Besides. At this stage she's merely a spectator, but a mere glimpse informs her she'd be playing the second fiddle till doomsday. Dante is already too preoccupied with his personal demons. Demon.

\--

So, the financial side of things is order and she's enjoying the jobs. It's understandable that it takes a while for her morbid curiosity to wake up. It's kept her alive so far, so when it does, she listens to it. Lady considers simply asking him: “What did your brother do to you that made you like this?” What holds her back is her hunch that he'd clam up. This is the something he's running away from.

Why Vergil? It can't be just the dying. You don't mourn anyone for decades, least of all an estranged sibling. No − this is a permanent way of being for Dante. Why?

The observation isn't one she could make instantly. In many ways, the aftermath goes as predicted. There are all the trappings of basic survivor's guilt with a side of trauma drama. He startles at reflective surfaces and insists on dressing in an even angstier way than before, what have you. Unremarkable, normal-ish symptoms of a normal problem.

It's more than that, though. To put it simply, Dante is fundamentally broken as a person. It takes a while to get. It makes her doubt. The money's good for her, yes, but the compensation would not be worth it in the long run if she had to watch an unhinged individual whining and feeling sorry for themselves and nothing but. Endless pity parties get old after a while if you don't have a savior complex, and she'd be the first to admit she's not an empathetic or nurturing soul by any stretch of imagination. It comes with the job and the upbringing. When she has enough savings to get by on her own and then some, she could fuck off and leave him to wallow in his troubles since she isn't going to try and save him.

Her decision to stay is a sum of many causes. Lady will confess this out loud over her dead body only, but okay, Dante's got redeeming qualities. He's genuinely funny. He gets shit done. He's loyal. While his motives are far from altruistic − she recognizes that because hers aren't either −, he's generous because he doesn't give a damn about wealth, no matter how much he gripes about paying a bill. Despite the unpredictable nature of their trade, they quickly develop a routine. Dante's eager − no, let's call a spade a spade − _desperate_ to accept any mission. Sure, he bitches and moans when he gets the equivalent of retrieving a cat from a tree on his desk. He still does it because he needs the distraction of doing something and being able to buy additional distractions. It's escapism. She benefits from it.

It also helps that Dante's not that happy to be a hybrid. Starting to call him by his name takes a while and referring to him as a “he” insider her head is an even longer process, but Lady gets there. She likes not having to explain herself to him. If she's going on a bender to combat a nightmare or boredom, she won't be judged; Dante either gets it or knows better than to ask. If he thinks she's feeling down, he suddenly has a new assignment for her or just talks her ears off and fills her head with his inane chatter. She doesn't need this but it's − nice. For the first time in her life, she can afford such luxuries.

They aren't some kindergarten BFFs and thus don't do bars and office nights every day. They do hang out often enough that she can't claim to be lonely. Dante occasionally has valuable insight as far as supernatural bullshit goes, so she learns a thing or two too. He's got great stories about his adventures in general, and some of them she can even verify. She's building a puzzle and finds it surprisingly entertaining.

Once she has access to his belongings, Lady snoops around. Of course she does, she's got to cover her bases if this is the card she's going to be betting on. Using her networks to connect the dots, she finds out about the newspaper clippings from some Red Grave City rag, the fire and the manor burning down, allegedly killing the mother and her two sons. While there's a shrine for the mom in the photograph he's framed, Dante doesn't keep those articles around himself. Morrison, however, does; if it's a secret she's not meant to know, he shouldn't do such a lousy job of locking his windows. No mentions of a father. Figures, the daddy issues are self-evident and the Sparda she's heard so much about doesn't strike her as the fatherly type.

It doesn't seem like the twins spent a lot time together after the incident. Dante emerges alone as a series of names whispered in smoky cellars and shadowy alleys afterwards, all tied to demon hunting and other shady businesses. Cage fighting, a hired gun, private eye, anything to keep his head above the water. He must have been shockingly young when he started, even younger than she was. Lady can respect that.

The evidence paints a clear enough timeline, but it's still the barest of bones. What does she even know about their sibling rivalry and Vergil as a whole? Besides the fact that he was obviously the evil twin and managed to be a colossal prick even in comparison to his brother, that Arkham's gaze traced his hips like hers, she can only guess. Dante's open to questions in theory but his replies are useless. While he's reliable in his actions, he lies to the degree that nothing he says can be taken at face value. He's a dead end, Lady's on her own.

She has… theories. She's not a fan of them. Unfortunately, Dante's not proving her wrong, so the inkling nags and nags at her.

\--

“Now that you mention it, I've heard of you before,” Dante says when Lady's telling him how a mission she did way back when caught Morrison's attention. They're at a point where she doesn't even seriously wonder why she's doing it.

“Oh? What did you think?”

“I dunno. I don't think much of anything, really.”

He's as flippant as ever, but she believes him to an extent. It's a no-brainer that Dante doesn't want to spend time inside his own skull. The function is clear, but the methods he uses to avoid that are often bizarre, like she's looking at a nature documentary without a voice-over. It's either tragic or amusing, she hasn't decided which.

Some of his more exotic habits must be old coping mechanisms. That's the best explanation she has for stuff like the numerous books he has and doesn't read. Well, he could be doing that, but it's not likely. She never catches him at it and the spines are uncracked when she goes through some of them. Checking the titles reveals that there's no rhythm or reason to their contents, except they're all non-fiction and very random. Astrophysics, creationism, mechanics, microbiology, dictionaries, homeopathy − none of them things Dante has shown even a passing interest in. Throwing her hands up, Lady's forced to conclude he just likes the concept of having a bookcase around. He doesn't shove her against it, it's not a big deal.

Weirder yet is the hoard of musical instruments he keeps buying and discarding. Hoarding devil arms she gets, she's a bit of a connoisseur herself. But regular ones? As far as Lady's aware, the only creative outlet Dante really has is doodling graphic, gruesome pictures of headless bodies while on the phone. At least the constant blaring of the jukebox and the loudspeakers makes more sense; the noise of the muzak he chooses to play drowns out any thoughts. He even sings when he's inebriated, a nice voice that he ruins by being or pretending to be so fucking wasted. It's actually a spectrum for someone with demon blood, insobriety. Dante doesn't usually get truly hammered in anyone's presence but must be having a constant buzz with all the neurotic swigging he does. His income, his prerogative − as long as it doesn't affect anything else, she leaves him to torturing his liver. But Lady doesn't witness him using the instruments even at his drunkest or "drunkest".

When he hauls in his third guitar in as many months, her nosiness takes a rare win. “Do you even know how to play?”

“Nope. Don't have to; holding it and looking pretty is enough to get the ladies − sorry, women.”

It would be a slightly better diversion if he, you know, got laid. Ever. “What women?” Lady comes close to asking. “No need for the show, you buy yours,” she could add for good measure, but she's not feeling like discussing the excessive amount of erotica lying around his workplace.

Some peculiarities she just chooses to ignore for the sake of her sanity. On one occasion, Lady tries to find out why there's all of a sudden a large sigil etched on the floor. Is it a demon thing? Vandalism? A drunken fancy?

“What's it do?” she inquires.

“Boils eggs. I'm a walking catastrophe in the kitchen, could burn water,” says the man who made her a passable hangover omelet like a week ago. She doesn't know what she expected.

“It's a ward. Helps to keep intruders at bay,” he explains later, unprompted. Seems reasonable enough, which is shy she doubts it's true.

Distractions. They're weird and unhealthy but mostly harmless, so whatever. He lumbers on without a brain just fine.

\--

As infuriating as he is, Dante is much more likeable when he drops the straight guy act and deflates like a sad, gay balloon. Because that's what he is, right? None of this adds up otherwise.

The woman who asked them to slaughter the non-dragon and its smaller companions tries to chat him up. She's gorgeous by most standards and her apricot dress suits her complexion even if her snotty attitude isn't doing her any favors. Lady is entertaining the notion of asking her phone number when she drapes herself against Dante's shoulder, complimenting his bravery and musculature. Her gaydar makes an angry, downcast bleep.

“I'm − taken,” Dante says, nearly convincing in his nonchalance. He dusts her off like he's done this before.

“Oh,” the patron says. She gives Lady a measuring look from her beat-up shoes to the blue splatters in her hair, her calculations as visible as her initial disappointment. “Congratulations.”

Lady detests the assumption but doesn't bother correcting her. They'll never see her again after they've seen their payment, she's not the only one to ever make it and. She's surprised by the choice of words. He's lying, clearly. Still.

There's a thought.

Can't pretend it hasn't crossed her mind before.

Dante doesn't get fond of his blatant tall tales enough to recycle them. His lies mutate all the time, often even within a single conversation. This lie, it doesn't. “I'm taken,” he says when a male model hits on him in a gay bar that they frequent for its appealing happy hours. Not “I have a girlfriend” or “I'm straight”. “I'm taken”, always, never “I'm married”, “You're not my type”, “I'm a widower and still grieving”, “Sorry babe, I'm not into humans”, “I don't mess with clients”, “Fuck off”, none of the million other ways he could put it to turn someone down. It gains the weight of a prayer because it's the one thing he never changes.

_I'm taken_. Lady wishes she didn't understand as well as she suspects she does.

\--

Never, not even once does he name him. As a rule, Dante doesn't refer to Vergil in any way, neither directly nor implicitly; the times he does corrode into her memory as rust-bright stains she can count with her fingers. The refusal to face the ghost head-on grates on her nerves, but she sort of realizes why it's a rule for him when she witnesses him breaking it.

It's approximately the one-year anniversary of the tower ordeal. Lady's sleeping better than in ages, Dante's general mood has soured. It's difficult to describe at first and mostly very subtle, which is unsettling because Dante is not a subtle person. He gives no indication of ever being aware of the day creeping closer, but there comes an evening when he's sitting on the moth-eaten sofa, clutching a jug of booze, surrounded by a division of drained containers. He's drunk now, honest-to-god drunk, and it's somehow hard to watch when he fakes a smile and laughs about having a small nightcap. She doesn't say no when he invites her to join him.

Sitting on his desk and quietly sipping what she's given, she listens. Dante talks, says a lot by saying nothing of substance.

“There was this poem, I was read it, y'know? Well, a lot of them, all the time. I was read stuff, lots. Often Latin, pretentious as fuck. But this one I like. Mm, I found it again later, 's short so I learned it, _odi et_ , it goes − fuck, why don't I remember, I know it, _et_ …”

His voice fades into a strangled silence. He looks for it in the swill he's holding and finds no answers.

“Why can't I remember?”

Lady keeps her mouth shut. His unfocused eyes are wet; he looks like he wants to cry but has no idea how to begin. The following day, he will conveniently be unable to remember any of this too.

“I just… I want to. I don't want to remember. It's good to forget, I need − I'm afraid all the time that I forget the last things I've got, that I don't, that the end never comes. I'm a fraud.”

Even in his stupor, he doesn't allow himself to give him a shape with his words, so Vergil remains a nameless weight above him.

This will harm him over the long. His inability to deal with whatever there was going on between the two of them prevents him from healing, but she's unsure if he could get over it if he tried. She's not his shrink, it's not her place to order him around.

That said, Lady refuses to be his enabler either. She calls him out when he tells her an anecdote a year or so later, or what he seems to deem a joke at the moment. The punchline relies on him being an only child. This sort of storytelling is something Dante does a lot to fill the stillness, to keep himself in constant movement, so the specifics of the tale are lost to her and don't matter. She won't pry, but he doesn't get to pretend like this, not when it's making her his accomplice.

She says: “That's bullshit, Dante, we both know that. I was there. I _saw_ you. You were identical.”

The bravado shatters for a long second. Everything in his face freezes, the glass wall in front of his eyes gets thicker.

“Would be nice to be so sure,” he replies, his voice rough and quiet. Then blinks at her and launches another humorous story as if it's nothing.

She has an answer. Would be nice if she didn't.

\--

Lady hasn't got any siblings, living or dead. Thankfully − she knows not everyone would have left. Could she have done what she did if escaping would've meant abandoning someone at Arkham's hands? Would it have crushed her or only made her resolve harder? Impossible to say. She has no reference points, no standards whatsoever for normal blood relations of this type. She's probably not completely alone in that.

Something went wrong between the twins and it did a number on Dante. Her suspicions become more damning until they start to seem more like proof. What could be the smoking gun appears on one of the times she finds _Devil May Cry_ seemingly empty.

He's actually crawled to his bedroom to pass out today, she marvels. Or he's in the cellar, getting shit-faced in isolation. No clubbing with him tonight in any case, Lady's got to cancel her plans. She turns to leave, but something grabs her attention. There's a thick porn mag lying abandoned on the floor. The cover makes it clear it's about lesbians; wow, such a basic male thing. It's disgusting. She's not interested in any of this. Normally, she could pass it with a shrug and wonder why he bothers spending his money on useless rubbish. What stands out is that some of the shiny pages have been torn off and shredded or crumpled into balls. It's not really the trash that's conspicuous in itself either…

Lady gets a feeling. She crouches down and opens one of the bundles. Faced with a naked woman that has terrible bolt-on tits and piercingly blue eyes, something gets stuck in her throat. The next one reveals a blue-eyed model as well, the third two platina blondes. Cold colors, a cold stare.

Most of the cutoffs have light shades in their irises, extremely pale skin or fair hair, some all of the above. There are a couple of Japanese women too and, almost hilariously, one older mannequin that has naturally greyed, silvery locks. When she flips through the issue with a mild fever in her fingertips, none of the girls preserved in it have those features. The pattern continues when she looks around and sees the posters hanging on the walls. Posters, the fucking posters − she complained when they started to show up and was met with deaf ears. The first one to materialize was the woman with an eyepatch, dressed in bikini bottoms and black stars slapped on her breasts to both preserve a modicum of modesty and to titillate the male gaze, a suggestive rocket rising towards the sky behind her. She multiplied through parthenogenesis and is now accompanied by her plastic sisters.

On the walls, in the magazine. Only brunettes and redheads with dark features, women who are safe. In the scrap pile, blondes and twins and wintry ice queens in shades of katana steel. Hiding in plain sight. Zero men. She sees an image.

There are only two of the castoffs that don't fall in the neat, obvious categories. She looks at the clippings and doesn't want to understand but tries nevertheless. It has to be about the mouth, in the proud line they have set their jaws.

It's a shield, just like she thought it was.

She feels like she needs to throw up, but her stomach and esophagus are completely dry.

Did they −

Were they −

Or is it just Dante wishing they were?

Lady can't imagine herself welcoming Arkham's advances. The visceral disgust she experiences at the thought convinces her she would've never done that, even if she hadn't made her move in time and he had gone too far. She'd rather killed herself than let him, plain and simple and her every priority and survival instinct damned. But she's not Dante.

She leaves the rolls of paper open. They don't talk about it. Life goes on the same way as before.

\--

Eventually, she realizes Dante's not merely killing time and counting the days until his death by whatever that manages to shoot him down, though that makes up a big part of his misery. No. He's waiting. _For what?_

When the other shoe does drop, she's not there.

\--

Almost ten years into their relationship, the front door to _DMC_ is locked. It's not early enough to be morning anymore − it's business hours, it should be open if he's present. She's unsure why she's sensing a bad omen looming over the building when she produces the spare key from the crack above the frame. Prolonged exposure to a wraith has made her more sensitive to that sort of shit, perhaps.

“Dante?”

As expected, no one answers her. He's not home. It's nothing special.

The feeling grows stronger.

The first thing she notices is that the pool table has been upended. The colorful billiard balls lie scattered on the floor along with a dart or two, a cue stick is missing, broken glass glitters in the light. Nothing that can't be repaired, though. It's a bit strange: he usually ends up destroying the furniture that gets in his way when he's having a fit. Lady's used to finding half the officed razed to the ground, either by him or an enemy precious enough to think they'll find these tactics intimidating. This, on the other hand, looks out of place. When she steps inside, it becomes apparent that there has been a small fire. The room has a faint smell of rubber and smoke, and there's a fair amount of dried blood as well. That's not too uncommon. But where is the owner if not here, erasing the evidence of his progressing decomposition?

He goes on solo missions every now and then, of course, but what he doesn't do is leave the digs in this state. For all he's bad at hiding them, Dante doesn't like showcasing his episodes. For fuck's sake, he even keeps his actual alcohol stash and empty bottles in the basement that she never visits. He needs the pretense in this.

This is unnerving.

At least there's a hasty note he's scribbled on the back of a receipt from the liquor store. He's apparently bought only ten bottles of the strongest swill they have, so money's tight, Lady notes idly as she flips the piece of paper to check that the curly script doesn't continue there. Nope, it's short.

_Something came up._

_-D_

Not ominous at all.

There's no date anywhere. He always leaves a dating. Lady left the city for a week and a half and they didn't meet for a couple of days before that, and the blood's dry − how long has he been gone? Something about this makes her feel on alert, so she goes home, gets her necessities and sets camp in the spare room. In the middle of the night, the sound of the door slamming wakes her up.

Looking like death warmed over, the man of the hour is one step away from doing a nosedive. His feet hold him because he's not really walking on his own: Dante's dragged inside by a stranger that looks exactly like the person in the photo. Her outfit is much more revealing, but there's no mistaking the face; a spitting image of the woman in the red shawl, Dante's mother.

No, scratch that. Fuck, it's a demon. Lady may have missed how her amulet reacted to Dante at the start, but she sure as hell sees how it keeps flashing now.

“Dante, what the fuck is this?” Lady asks, equally pissed off and worried. Nothing about this is normal.

“Trish, this is Lady. Lady, Trish,” he grunts and slumps on his chair with some assistance from alien. The blonde in question places herself next to his desk and looks at her like she owns the place.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady. I've heard a lot about you,” she says, oblivious to how inappropriate her cheery tone is in the situation.

“Don't you patronize me, demon. What's going on?”

Dante rummages through the drawers, refusing to meet her gaze.

“Dante!”

He picks up two glasses and a bottle. He sets them on the table and tries to pour the liquid into the appropriate depressions. His hand slips, as if he forgets to press it closed round the object he's holding, his bonelessness making him clumsy and his pallor polishing his skin wet. The bottle drops, the booze spills; reddish liquor of some sort forms a pool on the table. Dante stares.

“Dante!”

The stranger seems to take pity on her. A shame it's good for nothing. “Mundus, the emperor of the underworld, was resurrected twenty years ago, long after his powers had been sealed away by Sparda. He attempted to gain control over the human world once again by opening a hell gate on Mallet Island. Dante triumphed over him and put an end to his plans for now.”

A load of nonsense. The way it/she/the fuck speaks is grating as well. She's such a fake Lady's getting flashbacks to meeting Dante, who in his current form is acting as if he doesn't hear the conversation going around him at all. “Let's have a drink,” he pipes out. He gets ignored.

“Yeah, he locked horns with another devil. And then what?” Lady doesn't buy for a second she's being told the whole story. As much as she hates to admit it, this has Vergil written all over it somehow. Dante's too apathetic to truly react to anything else, and it doesn't take much detective work to notice he's shell-shocked and spiraling.

“I don't understand the question. Dante won this time, but the evil will still return some day. Other than that, I can't predict what will happen next,” the woman frowns.

Lady decides to dismiss her. She's out of her depth and entirely useless, an outsider.

“Dante. Tell me what really happened.”

“I already told you!” the demon cries out. She's this close to snapping “shut up” at her. As if Dante cared about the end of the world enough to become distressed, don't make her laugh.

“Dante,” she presses, trying to corner him. Dante makes an attempt at lifting his head at her direction. His fringe is clinging to his forehead stubbornly, but the hollowness shines through the strands of hair. While there's no direct eye contact, she can't help spotting how bloodshot his whites are. Somehow, she doesn't get the impression he's been crying, and yet he looks so much worse than he did on the day they met.

“A drink,” he repeats as a broken record.

There's still a wrong number of glasses, now filled to the brim with crystal-clear booze. Dante scowls at the drinkware as if the thought occurs to him only now. He solves the problem by grabbing the bottle and muttering a half-assed “cin cin” before inhaling its contents, pushing the shots towards the women.

Lady downs hers quickly, hoping to get things over with. Predictably, Dante's breaking out the good stuff for an occasion. The blazing on her tongue screams it's some kind of pure ethanol, the exact type a mystery she's not keen to solve. Dante has a shit taste.

The she-devil coughs, spills half her shooter on her bustier and makes a face. “This is vile.”

“Yes. You'll get used to it,” Dante says colorlessly. He slams the empty bottle on the table with enough force to make it splinter. If he notices the shards digging into his palm as he keeps crushing the thing inside his fist, he's not letting it show. The red stain grows bigger. The alcohol rushing into her head is converting into fear.

“What happened,” Dante says, pronouncing every syllable clearly and scalpel-sharp as if he's carving them into his own flesh by talking, the unwavering stability in his voice frightening when his body is barely able to contain the shaking rising up from his spine, “is that he wasn't dead because Mundus decided to turn him into his mindless plaything, and I, like I always do, didn't see anything until I had already killed him for real. All these years, he wasn't dead, but he is now. So, in other terms nothing's changed, nothing actually happened.”

So. Vergil. Being right is not a victory.

Lady's not scared of Dante, that he would lay a finger on her. Of course not, he guides his urge to destroy inwards. His emotions are an insatiable hate sink, there'll be none left for anyone else; he's a danger to others if he's paid, otherwise only by accident. That doesn't mean it isn't a wise idea to be anywhere else but here when and if he goes nuclear. 

What could Lady say to him, anyway?

To the credit of the newcomer, she does not seem to be blind. “Can I talk to you in private, Lady?” she says, not oblivious to the fact that the time to get out is now.

Dante is still bleeding when the door closes between them.

Outside, Lady shoves Trish against the wall as soon as they reach the backside of the building. She goes slack without a fight, making a sound as the impact forces the air out of her lungs. She's tall. Her impractical heels don't help. Her getup is tasteless and serves no purpose in battle, corsets and constricting leather, it's insulting. Lady knows nothing about her, so she knows it's completely irrational to have such a strong reaction to her.

“Okay, let's chat! I'm done playing nice. Now I want some answers and you're going to give them to me or I'll blow your brains out,” she tells the creature, underlining her message with the handgun pointed at her stupid smug face. “First off: _what did you do to him_?”

“I did nothing!” she claims. She's more distressed at Lady's words than the threat to her life. Fucking hellspawn, where do they find these things and why do they come to her.

“I don't believe you. You're a fucking demon, I know your kind,” Lady accuses. Too much pointlessly exposed skin, there's not a lapel she could grab to shake her.

The monster stares back at her with wide eyes and an unhappy mouth. “Mundus created me to lure Dante to the island. He controlled my mind. I had no choice but to follow orders until I was freed from his influence.”

“A fake demon? That's even worse.”

She finally gets a response − the body under hers ticks angrily and a hand moves to grab her wrist. She shoves it away with the butt of the gun. Trish lifts her chin up in defiance. “Mundus created me to be his slave, but I am a demon as much as anyone else.”

“So you're a shapeshifter like the rest of your ilk, then? Show me your real form, you coward.”

“This is my real form, I don't have any others.” The demon waves her hands around in demonstrations, which only makes her aura crackle and glow yellow against her paleness and the redness of the brick wall. 

“Don't lie to me. Let's see if I can beat it out of you,” Lady says. Trish ducks the first strike.

That's how they proceed to kick the shit out of each other in Dante's backyard while he's busy having a mental breakdown. The kicking is pretty literal in this case, her opponent likes to get real nasty with that. It's the goddamned heels. Lady's glad she had enough sense to put on her trusty, _sensible_ boots before running downstairs.

Yeah. She is a little ashamed afterwards.

It's ridiculous. Lady's supposed to have matured, she's a grown-up now. She thought she'd be above catfights and hair pulling. Apparently she isn't. She can come up with reasons and justifications for lashing out the way she does, but she makes a point of being honest to herself because somebody in this clusterfuck has to. Ultimately, she's doing it because she wants to take her frustration and anxiety out on something. This paints a great target.

It's exhilarating. Trish is tough, very fast and agile and ruthless, but she's not − she's not Dante, who is always pulling his punches when they have a tussle. Lady's aware she must be somewhat tired from the long day she's undoubtedly had. Full demons regenerate rapidly, so she's not letting it show. She favors her pistols, legs and fists over her powers at first, but when she notices Lady's not someone she can just walk over, she isn't above to resorting to fancy magic tricks. It's also her downfall. When she abandons the kid gloves and starts trying to stun Lady with electricity, she slows down enough for Lady to get the jump on her. Her melee skills have definitely improved during her time with Dante, she thinks as she hears a bone breaking.

When she pins her down and sits on her thighs, they're both panting heavily and Lady's breath is rattling, prickling her throat. “You're good. I like you,” Trish says and wipes off the blood coming from her nose. It'll heal.

“Shut the fuck up and fight me,” Lady hisses. It comes out as a wheeze, but the intent's there.

“No. This was fun, but I am not your enemy. I am here for Dante.”

Lady still wants to punch this bitch. She's making it harder by being this damn calm with a metaphorical knife on her neck. Doesn't anyone have a survival instinct these days?

“He should've killed you himself,” Lady huffs. Her anger's fizzling out. The emotions beneath it aren't ones she'd like to experience now, so she tries to cling onto the aggression.

The demon looks sad. “Maybe. I am glad he didn't.”

Just − It's such a Dante thing to do, pure idiocy. He kills his brother by accident and fails to kill someone even he knows he's supposed to get rid of. Lady might laugh if she wasn't so tired.

“Shouldn't,” she has to take a pause and try again, needs to get some oxygen flowing in her system. “Shouldn't you be stronger than him? He's a mutt but you're not human at all.”

“The blood is important, but strength isn't merely about its purity; the origin matters as well. Unlike him, I am no descendant of Sparda.”

Didn't this supposedly powerful Mundus use his own blood to create her? Never mind, Lady doesn't care. The point is to yell at the intruder until she goes away, dies or Lady's mood improves by other means. “What use will you be to Dante then? This is pathetic. Why don't you just crawl back where you came from?” she spits out. Her grip on the weapon is as unsteady as her pulse and patience and sweat makes her eyelids sticky. 

“Dante helped me and saved me, hence I owe him my life. He has my undying gratitude.”

Oh, that's rich. Trish here is not only a hand-made demonic puppet but also a sentimental idiot. She would fit right in, be an excellent partner for another fool. Dante must dig the familiar features.

“He can't drink or eat that, he won't give a fuck. You'll see. But actually − if you like him so much, you can have him. I can't babysit two demons.”

“No! I need your help, Lady,” the woman pleads. When her hand crawls on top of Lady's thigh, she swats it away. Don't.

“For what?”

“To help him. I have to repay him,” she replies.

Dear god, she's serious. There's got to be an angle.

“Help him? How?” Lady says, allowing her suspicion color her tone. The devil is clueless, though, she might not even notice. Thankfully, the hand stays down when she answers.

“Dante is in love with Vergil. Due to Mundus' corruption and glamor, he could not recognize it was him when they were battling each other; he realized the truth only in his death. I haven't learned much about humans and this realm yet, but it's clear to me that the loss will affect him severely. I want to ease his pain.”

Ah.

She's not wrong. Lady can't deny the relief of hearing the observation declared aloud. He is, isn't he? Dante is in love with Vergil. Someone else has seen what she's been seeing for years.

That doesn't mean this is good. The demon emperor could have planted the idea in his minion's head to trick them or something. There aren't any magic words that will bring Lady's guard down so quickly, these certainly won't. She knows, she hopes she knows, that Dante won't be killing himself over this directly, but he doesn't need any infiltrators encouraging him and fucking him up further.

“Why do you figure that? His feelings being like that, I mean,” Lady asks carefully.

“It's obvious. I have two eyes, don't I?” When Lady glances at her to check if the number is correct, she meets her eyes, full of determination.

It's − interesting.

Lady makes a noncommittal sound. Dante's secrets are his to keep, especially those he has never actually spelled out to her; she won't trust them to a stranger by confirming or denying anything.

Still. This, she concludes, has the potential to change thing. If she proceeds with caution −

“You can't help Dante,” Lady groans, rolling off her prisoner and letting herself fall to the ground. Her body aches when she addresses the darkened sky, longing for a brandy. “I'm not even talking about you here. Nobody can. Dante can't help Dante because he thinks he deserves to suffer and doesn't want to get better. If that's your goal, believe me, you're wasting his time and doing him a big disservice.”

“There must be something I can do.”

“Depending on you, there might be.”

Lady is not feeling guilty because she isn't in any way responsible. After all, she didn't trick Dante into destroying his twin and himself. She's got no illusions about her presence making any difference in the outcome. Had she wanted to, she couldn't have prevented Vergil's death, and why would she prefer him alive? A demon slain is always a good thing, even more so when the fucker in question dedicates itself to world domination and hurting Dante. Most likely Lady couldn't have done the deed in his stead either, to spare him, and the chances are he'd never forgiven him for that anyhow. She wouldn't have had words of comfort for him, doesn't have them now, won't become someone else to invent them. Isn't inside with him now. What would be the point of guilt?

She wasn't there. The puzzle has is starting to reveal shapes but she's still missing pieces. It isn't guilt, but she feels she should've been with him anyway. Funny how that works.

“Here's how this'll go. First, you're going to tell me everything you know about Vergil and what went on between him and Dante; lie and I'll fucking gut you. Then you're gonna answer a question.”

“I swear I will speak the truth and nothing but,” Trish says solemnly. “What is the question, though?”

The smirks that spreads on Lady's face feels less forced than expected. “How do you like killing other demons?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These guys are great at first meetings.
> 
> The poster with the woman and the rocket is actually featured in the game. Of all the questionable choices Dante's ever made, those concerning interior design aren't necessarily the worst, but man, they're still pretty bad.


	3. iii. Vie de Marli

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been struggling to find the motivation to edit and update things, trying to get over it. 
> 
> Anyway, let's do some 2D, that's always a good time :D

If this was some other story and they were some other people, maybe adding Trish into the mix would really change things for the better. Lady hates whatifs, so she does her best to stay away from them in general. It's never actual doubts, more like an ambient buzz − something like Dante's backdrop babbling, except more annoying. The questions, shit she doesn't truly believe in. What if she didn't shoot Arkham instantly. What if she made him talk, beg some more, grovel, made him reveal every dirty little detail, drew it out, let him wallow in his defenselessness at her feet, took away all his dignity in the face of certain death. What if she kicked his broken ribs, jabbed a knife in his eyes to take his own colors away, became his mirror in bloodlust. What if she had left Dante behind the first chance she got. The questions obscure her vision instead of giving her any insight. Why speculate when everything around her is a reminder of the roads she's taken and has been content to take? It's not doubt. Nevertheless, she plays with this particular thought sometimes. It serves no purpose; maybe Dante's masochism really has rubbed off on her.

In an imaginary setting, Trish glides into their ecosystem seamlessly and finds her role all by herself. Seeing her transformation from a mindless killing machine into a killing machine with a human-like persona makes Dante realize a thing or two about himself and helps him fix his emotions. He processes his past, thinking through every shitty thing his brother has made him suffer once with great care, and gets up from the floor, ready to start crafting himself a present and a future. With their combined efforts, they make a killing indeed − Dante begins to enjoy slaying demons not as a distraction but as an art, and soon, he buys himself a fancy house where nothing reminds him of what he's better off discarding, now that he's made his peace with it. A new man.

He could even fall into love, or at least into bed, with Trish. Maybe he learns there's such a distinction, that it doesn't have to involve feelings. At first, Lady doesn't like it, how it makes her skin crawl, but she can't deny it's an improvement overall. As fucked up as it is for him to desire a woman with his mother's face, the artificial familiarity − or blue pills and blindfolds, whatever, she doesn't care − is what he needs to get past his single-target homosexuality. He's been subjecting himself to conversion therapy for decades anyway, it's not like being gay is an identity for him. So, with the help of another demon he develops a normal-ish sex life that doesn't revolve around images of his dead twin brother, great. Maybe he develops feelings that are almost natural, maybe it's mutual. Lady sees the relationship she could've had with him herself. She's glad it's not the way things played out for them.

None of it happens, of course. It's an insultingly naïve fantasy that does none of them justice, alright, she's guilty. A question remains − is it what he was gunning for when he pardoned the minion, all the same? Was it _his_ fantasy first?

When she watches Trish settle between her legs and threads a hand into her hair, she might feel conflicted if Dante hadn't been gone for months already.

\--

If what happens in the backyard isn't exactly Lady's proudest moment, she's only a little more excited to dwell on the stages that follow. Trish cracks the bridge of her nose back to its intended position and speaks. Her gaze is uncomfortably intense now that her unfashionable sunshades have been forgotten inside the building, so Lady fixes hers at the sky that's slowly turning peach-pink with the dawn, lies on her back and lets the tale wash over her. Seeing that it offers little new and lacks substance, it's pretty much a bedtime story. It unfolds jerkily; the demon can't quite put the plot or her words together. She starts at the beginning and tries to describe the first moments after her own creation, none of Lady's concern, then jumps to the big bad they banished, lingers in the details of how the creature Vergil had become died. A pawn like Trish wouldn't know jack, no. When she tries to inquire if the twins were ever intimate, she gets a fish-like blink and a diatribe about Dante and Vergil being brothers and growing up together, which doesn't answer the question she was asking. Anyway.

"So," Trish chirps while picking herself up from the ground. "What are we doing next?" Lady ignores the hand she offers and gets up on her own, tidies her jacket up. Even when lying down, she's been thinking on her feet, and if they get to a point where silly grudges and annoyances start to matter again, Dante's got a hell of a debt to pay. She's mad at him for making her think about the scenarios where that doesn't happen.

"If you're serious about the wanting to help thing, we could use your skills. Currently, though, I don't fucking trust you, no matter what Dante's been doing with you. I'll treat you like the enemy until you prove yourself an ally, like it or not." In reality, it's not an offer she could refuse and live. Trish tells her she's committed to the idea in her stilted manner, and because Lady's in too lenient a mood to put a bullet in her brain regardless, they leave together.

Lady takes her to a hideout, the one that's the second nearest to Dante's place and includes a single-person bedroom, a tiny toilet and a kitchen slash living room. A double suite in a hotel would be nice for sure, but she'd be kidding herself if she thought this would be over anytime soon: it's the best she can do under the circumstances and without wasting too much resources on what she can only hope is a milk run. On their way there, Trish asks her about the plans she's got for her, out of her depth when Mundus isn't bossing her around anymore. Good for her if she isn't opposed to following orders. "Dante may have coddled you because he's a gullible moron, but I'll call the shots now. You'll know what you gotta know," Lady tells her. As expected, Trish falls into line neatly.

The air inside the apartment is a little stale and they'll have to visit a store if they want to eat anything not preserved in a can, but it's more than adequate for this. While Lady inspects the flat just in case, Trish stands still and looks around, overwhelmingly curious yet trained well enough not to nose around without permission. She looks unnatural in the bad lighting, the impractically long hair standing out in its yellowness, her long face drawn and as pale as her green eyes − like a sinister elf, a fucking vampire. Suddenly she realizes where Dante got it from, the otherworldliness. Here's a spooky body double of his deceased mother plaguing her digs in current year, meek in a way that could be affected or not, happy to get invited in. The demon should be ill at ease because she's dancing on thin ice, yes, but in addition she has the gall to look vulnerable.

This − this is Lady's problem now. Goddamnit, Dante. The idiot had no idea what to do with Lady when he served her a drink and more or less accidentally made her his partner in crime. Luckily for them, she's capable of leading herself, thank you very much. Learning squat, he's gone and acquired himself a less self-guided urchin without the intention to housebreak her himself. There aren't enough words in Lady's vocabulary to describe how much she resents him for dumping this on her as if he's convinced they'll get along fabulously purely by the virtue of being female and having something akin to a soft spot for him, or at least enough insanity to be able to stand him for more than two minutes in a row. As it stands, there's not a whole lot inside her head apart from the blur of drowsiness, least of all speech.

"I don't know how much rest you artificials need. Tough luck if you can't sleep like a human: your drama woke me up and I'm too exhausted to deal with this shit now, so you're gonna to spend the night lying on the couch anyway. Stare at the ceiling, twiddle your thumbs, meditate, I don't care. This is a safehouse, you wouldn't learn anything by sweeping it in any case. If you sneak out without my say-so, I'll be shooting you at sight. One slip and it's fire at will, and trust me, I don't miss. Am I making myself clear?"

Trish opens her mouth to protest, but something in Lady's expression makes her close it. A functional sense of self-preservation, excellent. It's a rare sight around here. "Yes, I understand." They can move on from there.

Lady considers tossing her a spare pillow or even a sheet. Her generosity is unnecessary; the demon folds herself on the sofa with movements that seem fluid enough for a factory-made being in themselves but get ruined when she cranks her arms over her chest so mechanically that Lady has to wonder if she somehow heard her earlier thought about ghouls. Is she yanking her chain on purpose? Does she even know what vampires are and is she aware she's looking like one, all dressed in black and lying in a coffin? Lady's pinches the bridge of her nose to rein in her headache. It spreads to her temples when the vamp wishes her good morning so cheerfully she's nearly having second thoughts. She'll skewer her with a stake if she catches a whiff of her leeching her vitality or planning to drink her blood, swear to god.

"Wait, I forgot! What shall we do about Dante?" her detainee pipes up when she turns towards the bedroom. Her smile feels sharp enough to cut glass. "We'll keep an eye on him and roll with the punches. There's never anything else to do. Welcome to _Devil May Cry_ , Trish."

She leaves the door slightly ajar. Listening to the motionlessness of the other room, she slips into slumber quickly enough. No dreams, just silence. A couple of hours later, she crawls to the bathroom to drink some water from the tab. Rubbing her eyes and thanking the blackout curtains that'll allow her to go back to bed for a bit longer, she can't be bothered to remember she's got company now.

"Good afternoon, Lady. Can I get up already, please?" Trish's pleasant greeting startles her when she emerges from the bathroom. Lady leans on the frame, relatively sure she's not experiencing a cardiac arrest despite her pulse going haywire; silver bullets, go to remember to buy those. There's a pair of eyes inspecting her in the middle of the darkness. When the light streaming from the toilet lamp hits them, the irises glow like a cat's. Creepy.

"No. Go back to sleep."

Inaction makes Trish jittery, she's soon to discover. To spare herself some hospital trips, Lady gives her a paperback one of her one-night stands forgot to take with him or her, she can't recall which. It only crosses her mind that the demon might not know how to read when she sees her baffled expression, but neither of them mentions it, and several days later, Trish asks for another book. Lady gets the feeling she isn't used to receiving any acts of kindness, never mind that her actual goal is to make her shut up and let her snooze. There's no reason to turn her down, though, especially since she plays nice enough. Who knows what a full-blooded devil might feed on in the wild, for example. Lady recalls Dante mentioning eating daemon flesh is a no-no to him − c'mon, it would be the same as eating people, basically cannibalism, Lady! −, but she's relieved when Trish at least pretends she's fine with TV dinners, she won't starve. Getting rid of a body is always a hassle.

She'll get to magicking corpses away at any rate, but she's getting paid for it: Lady has to start taking up jobs sooner rather than later. Morrison's goodwill, try as he might to deny its existence, means _DMC_ will survive a brief hiatus, but her private contracts can't wait infinitely. Trish has been behaving and dropping her off in daycare won't be possible as long as Dante's acting up himself, thus she accompanies Lady like a shadow. Might as well earn her keep while she's under her supervision. At this point, it's not surprising that they, too, are a good match on the battlefield: she's fast and competent at both melee and crowd control, which leaves Lady plenty of time to deal damage from the distance. It's almost irritating to have this rubbed in her face again. The universe is going all "oh, so you're prejudiced against demons? Here, have one that compliments your own strengths and weaknesses just so" to spite her, ignoring that it's not bigotry when it's true and she wouldn't give a fuck if it were.

All in all, wrangling the tag along goes slightly better than expected. Good that something does.

\--

Of course they pay him a visit the day After. Well, Lady does. "Wait outside," she tells Trish when she fishes for the key and marvels that the whole block hasn't gone up in flames already. Is it rude? Probably, but so is waltzing into their lives without an invitation. She's in for a ruder awakening if she expects to be welcome everywhere.

Her hands are not shaking when they futz with the lock; her apprehension is steady and heavy and slow. She enters, Trish gets wiped out of her mind, and then it's just the two of them, how it should be and not.

What, exactly, has she been anticipating? She can't quite tell. She's been dreading it, no point in lying about that, and trying to avoid picturing anything because speculating is no use until she has some concrete evidence to build on. Inside, it gets hazy. Her thoughts spin to a sudden halt, and while she's aware of her hand pulling the door closed behind her back, for a moment it's as though she's entered a physical stasis as well. The windows have gotten dirty enough over the years that the light they filter comes through weak and thin, but it's daytime, relatively bright. She can see dust swirling in the stuffy air like always, the desk and the red stains dotting it, the glass that used to be a bottle scattered all over the surface, Dante's folded hands, yet it takes her a while to get past the horizon of expectations and make sense of the scene. Maybe she didn't believe she'd find him doing much of anything, but she'd witness the memories of motions; more blood spilled; upended tables and bottles; live coals. Prepared to face the wrath in his movements, Lady hasn't realized she should be wary of passiveness.

There's nothing out of place. The furniture is unharmed, so is the proprietor. Dante is sitting where she left him yesterday as an obedient ragdoll. For all appearances, it looks like he's been there the entire time she tussled with the newbie and slept. The trembling is gone, his grief never erupted, he's so still it's impossible to say if he's breathing. Her shoes make noise when she shifts her weight, his glass eyes remain unfocused. Lady counts seconds. At the three-minute mark, she thinks she detects a flash that could be a blink.

Okay, round two of survivor's guilt. She came here with a purpose, and now that she's checked him out, she should walk him through the steps. She should start with telling him off. "You can't collect strays, Dante: you can't take care of them, you can't take care of yourself,” is what she wants to say. Dante isn't in the condition to handle truths − when is he ever, really −, but he's dropped a dangerous creature that already has a solid past of backstabbing in her lap and she's pissed. By saving Trish, he made her his responsibility and didn't pay any heed to the fact he doesn't do those, can't. Lady would love to kick back and let it blow up in his face, can't. No way she'll let Trish loose without monitoring when she's armed with knowledge of them and their operations. She could tell him to snap out of it and sort out his own messes, but he won't. Wonderful.

Clearly, it's hit him harder than first time around. She's unsure how to proceed. This wasn't in the program. Here's the payoff for trusting in people and their predictability, that'll teach her. Fucking demons, she thinks and watches how her presence doesn't register to him at all. He's among his ghosts again, and currently, Lady's one of them.

Hope. It's the hope that's killing him, the second chance he thinks he had. He deals death and deals with it but Vergil's life destroys his, clings to his feet and shrieks at him in the corners of the room. Is this him facing it or closing his eyes to the facts? What she should say is it wasn't your fault. You didn't know. You couldn't have known. Lady can't know that, he could've meant to put the revenant to death, but there's enough dishonesty between them to drown a fleet in already. Dante lives off it, doesn't he? By this point it would do no harm to drown him in sugar.

She's bad with words. Today, it frustrates her. Dante sits unblinking, unreactive and unseeing. She can't bring herself to lie. When she voices her thoughts, they sound both harsher than intended and too mild. "I don't know anything about him because you never told me − I only know what I saw, and what I saw isn't worth dying over. Your brother did everything he could to drag you down with him, Dante. Are you really going to let Vergil win?"

She's about as superstitious as she is kind, but there's something disturbing about the way a name that hasn't seen the light of day in decades rings when it's finally spoken in the open. It rolls off her tongue with a physical mass, almost. It's a cave of a room but too full of crap to echo, Lady tells herself, hearing her lines resound. Her shoulders are tense when she leans against the door and waits. Is he?

There's no reaction. He's too deep inside his despair, doesn't hear her.

She'd like to claim the tightness in her throat isn't relief, but she isn't in the habit of lying to herself. Lady is relieved because these are unknown waters and like this, there are no limits to what he might do. Nothing happened, the spell isn't broken, and while she isn't afraid of Dante in the sense that she'd fear what he'd do to her, she has to admit she's afraid of what Dante would do to himself.

She loses her sense of time. Watching and feeling powerless is as pointless as her one-sided conversation. The quiet sits wrong between them, a stranger. She's kept Trish waiting, but she doesn't comment on it when they head back, and it doesn't matter.

Lady can't save him from himself, correct. What's changed over the years is that she'd like to keep him afloat.

\--

They visit him the day after that too. Trish asks for permission to join her, psyching herself up for a no. It's the brows and the pout; she's overdoing it though, should take lessons from Dante, master of guilt tripping and kicked puppy looks. Her face lights up when Lady shrugs her whatevers, which feels like an inappropriate reaction considering. With her lack of grace, social skills and common sense, heaven knows what she'll get up to − somehow, it's not too difficult to imagine her babbling at the poor troubled bastard, you're doing so well already sweetie, let Mommy help you −, but Dante has to face the music eventually. If he's bothered by his own handiwork, these situations are easy to avoid. Just kill everybody.

Ah, there's your blood. It's not fresh and would in any case be overpowered by the smell of booze and bile that trail along with it from upstairs to the spot where the lord of the manor is slumped on the floor, naked save for his gloves and one stubbornly laced boot. A respectable amount of spirits has been guzzled down, the number of bottles around him is nothing to sneeze at. Shrapnel crunches under their heels like snow. This mood is a bit easier to handle, sort of.

She's taken the liberty to snatch the backup key and tells Dante as much. The answering grunt seems communicative. Yesterday set the bar very low.

"Are you alright?" Trish chirrs, hovering a few feet away from him and radiating an urge to get closer and poke at the bear either physically or less literally. The nudity doesn't hold her back, Lady supposes, it's likely her demonic intuition or whatnot. That's what his body language spells out to regular mortals, at least. Stay away.

Dante groans again. This time, it's a word: "No." Lady tries hard not to be impressed by the rare display of honesty, never mind that the evidence is undeniable at any rate. When has she turned into someone with expectations, low as they seem to be?

"Why are you even asking him that?" she says. Trish huffs. Is there a spark of resigned humor in her or is Lady imagining things?

"It makes me feel useful."

What can she say to that? Luckily for them, Dante has a way with words, rescues them from a standstill, their hero. "'m out of booze."

\--

After that, the times bleed into each other a little. It's the fifth or the seventh one, her arms are full of alcohol crates and birds are singing. Trish can try and communicate with them while she's busy, Lady thinks and walks into a nature show of her own; today, what catches her instant attention are the flowers.

Inside the glyph on the ground grows a rose bush. In the humbler Japanese roses she's seen, individual heads get lost in the shrubs, but these flowers sprout like vines, each blossom shooting up towards the ceiling on its own distinctive stalk. She's not greeted by a cloying floral scent because the plants aren't real; the colors, red and green, are as translucent as astral weapons but less stable, flickering on and off, disappearing for a blink every few seconds like busted Christmas lights in a display window. Faded as they are, the hues paint a bright contrast to the lifeless husk they're shading. Dante lies in curled a heap in the middle of the faintly glowing circle, his long limbs tucked inside the outer line. Lady knows better than to think he's passed out.

Hesitantly, she takes a step closer, two, one at a time until she's close enough to touch. When she reaches for a floret, its petals pass through her fingers, feel like nothing at all. He's made them himself, something so beautiful and desolate.

Beneath the branches, Dante watches her with tired eyes. "Helps to keep intruders at bay," she quotes an ancient lie.

Dante doesn't reply or avert his gaze, both inflated and dull. His hands are crossed over his chest, highlighting the hollow spot where his amulet used to rest against his breastbone. According to Trish, he gave her the sword that ate it up; Lady pretended to be surprised. They still feel the heavy gravity of its absence.

"You won't banish your demons by embracing them and refusing to call them by their name, Dante."

Dante says nothing. When the lock clicks closed behind her, he's still nestled in the same position. Absences. She only realizes how close he's let her when she's been shut out by him.

When she wakes up in cold sweat, Dante quivers behind her lids not unlike his conjurations, thorns in his eyes.

\--

A tenth visit never comes. The telephone on the bedside table rings in the middle of the night.

" _Devil May_ − the office burned down," Dante's exhausted voice salutes Lady as Trish passes her the receiver, her excitement at action having already changed into seriousness. "What's going on?" she mouths at her. Lady ignores her.

"How?" she asks, tired.

"I burned the office down," he elaborates, wiping away any hasty scenarios she might've cooked up about their enemies getting to him. The silence lasts a minute too long.

"Did you mean to?"

Dante swallows back whatever bullshit rises up into his mouth first. The connection crackles like static on TV. "No," he replies eventually. Lady believes him, but it doesn't matter.

"Where are you?"

The find him leaning against a phone booth within a stone's throw of ground zero. No need to get closer: the smoke can be seen from several blocks away. His miserable demeanor isn't out of place at a disaster site, yet in times past his reaction would've been more cursing and less… this, a non-reaction.

Dante nods when he sees them approach, the motion raising a cloud of dust. At least he's clothed and on his feet. He doesn't apologize for waking her up because she doesn't expect him to, and she hates that they both know it. Trish is the one to break the silence with her questions. The "are you okay" gets a hum, the rest fall on deaf ears.

Morrison takes one look at their sorry band and picks up his phone without a word. Lady would like to claim it's the general dejection they share that tells the tale, but Dante's still covered from head to toe in soot like a dirt-cheap Cinderella; how nice of their host to take pity on someone who's doing his best to coat his office in ash and abject misery. Fixing them up with new headquarters _again_ , he says, a hint of fatigue detectable in his tone as well, will take his guys forty-eight hours. They part ways on Morrison's doorstep − in the meanwhile, Dante can bunk wherever, he doesn't ask and she doesn't offer.

There will be fire as long as there's something to catch it. She could be comforted by the incident − it's not the first time it's happened, so it's not likely to be the last either. The cycle begins all over again. A week later, he has four walls, a roof and fluorescent signs in the same quarter of the city as always, just a few streets away from the wreck of his previous abode; there isn't much to salvage when they examine the area as things have cooled down, but the surviving dartboards, books and mysterious cardboard boxes find their way into the new address. He keeps the old name too, Lady doesn't read too much into it. It's what home feels like, she thinks when the lights welcome her back. Bittersweet, comfortably outdated.

\--

Dante, she comes to acknowledge for the thousandth time, is a liar in everything, even in names.

 _Devil Never Cry_. But he did, the first time around. She saw.

 _Devil May Cry_. But he doesn't, not since the tower. After that, she hasn't seen a single sincere, unrestrained expression of grief from him. It's always mixed up with something else, dulled by spirits, diminished into a subordinate clause he can't even bring himself to speak.

It's just the rain, in a way. It doesn't matter, wouldn't change things if he wept his tear ducts dry. She just − can't help noticing, the way she already did back at the ruins of Temen-ni-gru. On the days when his body gets into a lockdown and he won't spare her a glance no matter how loudly she curses at him, it would be easy to wish she'd been less observant, deemed him a predatory monster like the rest of his ilk and left. Instead, for a moment Lady wishes she could truly regret her decision to stay, then does something productive. Thing is, she's happy with her life even when she's unhappy with his.

She doesn't cry for him either. He doesn't owe it to her to feel better, but in turn, Lady isn't indebted to make him feel worse. Sometimes, there's a feverish glint in his eyes, something akin to a challenge; maybe he wants her to hurt him, she would know how. Even if he'll ask, she won't be his judge, jury and executioner. Dante manages fine on his own.

Home is not the walls. It's the crushing helplessness residing inside them, brandy burning her palate.

\--

As far as she knows, he doesn't carve sigils and plant immaterial flowers into the soil of his newest office. If he does, he does it in the privacy of his cellar, which is fine by her; whether the lack of demolition is due to respect for the efforts Morrison put into the arrangements or his own depression turning less manic is anyone's guess. It's remarkable how identical the blueprints of this place are to the property Dante razed, Lady notes as she hauls in a case of hard liquor and adds another item to the tally. A basement slash mancave, two floors, hideous yellow wallpapers and unadorned concrete. She hopes Morrison enjoys the nice diamond-filtered vodka she got for him and thinks of it fondly the next time they'll have to go to his door tails between their legs. She didn't leave a message, but unless he's in the habit of letting just anyone break into his swanky penthouse and peruse his personal diaries, he knows who it's from; not everyone is aware his poison of choice is something as girly as cosmopolitans when he looks like he chugs smoky whiskeys by the pint. Even such a hardened businessman as him sometimes appreciates gestures more than money.

Speaking of their finances: since the rest of the world isn't on a sick leave and bills keep racking up, they need to get the legendary hunter out in the field again. Easier said than done, Dante's position keeps being largely horizontal. He's more disgruntled with his inability to pull himself together than she is. To Lady, it's just sad. Predictable but upsetting, reminds you of a young bird that's fallen from its nest, or a turtle that's capsized. You'll know it's not likely to get back to safety, yet you can't help watching it fail. You feel bad.

Today, Dante's buzzed by nine o'clock in the morning because Lady decided to get him drunk while Trish would ransack his library. It used to be more of an entertaining number: once upon a time, she'd get a song or a series of anecdotes, now it's them lying on the sofa and the carpet with the jukebox screaming at the top of its lungs to fill the space between. She's been wondering if the song's remained the same for the past fifteen minutes; the lyrics, delivered by continuous shouting, are no use in determining much of anything when she can't make out even a phrase.

"I'm trying," he says as he drains his flask. His lies sound less convincing than usual somehow, and that could be why Lady doesn't feel charitable enough to ignore them. Maybe it's the blood smeared all over the staircase that bothers her too. He must've tried sleeping again.

"Is it me you're trying to convince or yourself?"

He grumbles to both acknowledge the issue and brush it off. Lady wants to call him an asshole for making her worry, but it's not news to him.

"You don't have to lie to me, you know," she points out measuredly, glances at her nails. She's been keeping them short again, too fed up with men to consider picking any up anytime soon. Dante cracks an ugly smile when she reaches for a glass. Trish's steps patter on and on upstairs.

"I don't know how to be someone else yet, but I'll let you know when I do, Lady."

They'll talk shop tomorrow, or the day after that.

\--

On the worse days, the moments of inertia and hours upon hours between one mission and another, she's so incredibly glad it's not her. One man's personal tragedy is another's cautionary tale − she could've ended up the same way if she hadn't made it a priority to first deal with her issues and then promptly discard them. She, at least, hasn't fought for nothing.

\--

"Are you alright?" Trish asks for the thousandth time. Dante's pinched yes comes from somewhere below the desk. For the most part, he's been taking his drinking underground again, managed an independent trip to the liquor store at some point. An upside − his isolationism means they won't have to spectate an actual drug abuse saga, just the ravages of King Alcohol. Behold.

"You're lying," Trish accuses, deciding against pointing a finger at the legs, the only part of his body not fitting underneath the table. What a clever girl. She either ignores Lady's snort or doesn't get what she means by it. A wise move, that. She's getting smarter, starting to see she won't be able to waltz into this clusterfuck and straighten every kink out by wishing very hard and waving her fingers, but it's a process. Maybe Lady should really get that TV she's been thinking about buying; soap operas could teach her newest pet demon a thing or two about interaction and honesty.

Dante grunts. There's a loud, hollow thud, the sound of a head hitting wood when it contains too few brain cells to realize even a demonic skull won't go through solid objects without a fight. It thumps back to floor level, curses gently and eventually replies: "What gives you that impression, Trish?" Trish doesn't get the sarcasm, so for the next five minutes, they listen her to drone on about all the ways he and his lifestyle suck. It's Tuesday. These are the best years of his life and since he doesn't have it in himself to go after the demon king, he's apparently spending them haunted not only by his memories but also the remote possibility of the Mundus character making a return even when he has absolutely nothing he could lose anymore. He did use to do other things than drinking every now and then.

What the constant intoxication does is, among other things, allow some of his old personality to shine through: when hammered, he's slightly more extroverted again. Some nights ago, he tried to open up with predictable results. "I find myself playing the same story on repeat. It's a goddamn limbo −," he gritted out but got shaken by how clear and sheer his bitterness rang even in the middle of his slurring. A hasty swig of booze stifled the thought before it went anywhere, and it wasn't a novel observation in the least. They're getting nowhere fast.

"Do you like being this unhappy?" Lady's frustration blurts out in the present. What a joke, too late to take it back, she regrets it as soon as she hears herself. This is why she surrounds herself with people who are all too eager to do all the talking.

Dante, a good sport, takes the low blow in stride. They've seen worse from each other, he's seen her at her lowest and ugliest without comment. As down as he is, he's never needlessly cruel with her, doesn't seek revenge even when it'd be just. "You got me, I'm practically married to my misery. Don't tell anyone though, people like thinking they have a shot at me," he says and Lady remembers why she likes him. She silences Trish's questions with a look and gets them a round of something greasy and boozy.

Next week, they take him out on a mission and he survives, a little green around the gills in white sunlight but seemingly alive in a way he's forgotten about in the bleak cosmos of his office. If Lady ignores how curt he is with the clients and how he avoids bringing along Rebellion, his former best friend, they've nearly gone back in time: he hacks and blasts foes into pieces with contrived gusto, indulging in a little Dutch courage to maintain the performance. Hey, it gets the job done. When most outstanding invoices have been dealt with, he wastes all his money on a new wardrobe, storing the clothes on the back of various armchairs as usual because he still doesn't have an actual closet for them. Trying to rebrand himself through his looks is a ritual by now, really, although in Lady's opinion, he could use a more drastic makeover. It's noticeable, the gloominess, that he's decidedly not okay, acts as a repellant. Other people can't read the signs but steer clear of him out of pure animal instinct. In bars, he's rarely hit on, and if someone's drunk enough to insist in spite of his mannerisms broadcasting how off-limits he considers himself, they stop short the instant they see his creepy sunken eyes.

What's missing is humor. His stupid, stupid little jokes have vanished into thin air and Lady never thought she'd feel so weirded out by his seriousness − it's what she'd been hoping to witness early on, isn't it? It's shit. The solemn wall he's built makes him an alien and it's slowly doing her head in. Dante is never not mourning, yet he hasn't worn it like this before, as a shield. It makes him vulnerable. It can't go on forever. It tells a lot when even the newcomer has noticed the switch, as socially stunted and relatively new to his antics as she is. "I've just realized Dante's been rather reticent," she tells her after a few weeks that Lady has spent gritting her teeth at every lull in their conversation, silences that wouldn't have formerly existed. "He kept talking all the way to Mallet Island − I barely got a word in edgewise! While it was a blessing back then, with me trying to trick him and avoid blowing my cover, now I am starting to find it strange." Lady replies with a noncommittal sound. Words have a tendency to fail them.

He does talk less in general, about as mute when they're alone as in public. Used to talkative companions, Lady's almost glad to have Trish pick up the slack and blabber her ears off in her quest to discover the secrets of proper human conduct. Consequently, Lady's close to freaking out when he shows the first hint of joy since forever. It sizzles out as quickly as it came, and if the cause wasn't as ridiculous as it is, she might call it heartbreaking. Dante makes a triumphant comeback from his brief chitchat with a customer − who, in hindsight, did look like he was short on cash, damn it −, lugging around a bag of fake coins with a Trish-shaped figure of a woman printed as the heads, albeit some of them are defective and have two identical sides to them. Finally lost it, did he? Well, yes, but also no. The beauty of the counterfeit money he accepted as payment for the job is that he can have it make his decisions for him. All those pesky mental maneuvers can be replaced by simple physical actions, what a bargain. Observe? He'll rescue your cat and water your lilies, yes. Reverse? No, he won't have coffee with you even if it's your treat. One could think he'd learn a coin trick or two so that luck could excuse him from things he doesn't want to do, but honestly, Lady can't tell if he's bothered. What's important is that the lottery also minimizes the amount he needs to speak. Now he can communicate by flipping a token and maybe plastering a one-liner on top if he's feeling feisty, and credit where it's due: his quips have somehow managed to get even lousier. _It's your lucky day. Crap like that doesn't interest me._ _Adios_. _Whatever_. The same bollocks repeated over and over again. _I love this, this is what I live for_ in a new package. It's almost like he isn't even trying, ha ha ha.

She's rarely felt as much like strangling someone with her bare hands as the first he does it to her, answers her question with a toss. Her fury burns bright and sudden now that there's finally an outlet for it: _don't you dare disregard me like that, like I'm just anyone._ Maybe he sees the look in her eyes; he refrains from doing it again and makes various grunting noises the mainstay in their dialog. Neither of them gets what they want, so they're even. Story of their life.

\--

She's on a solo mission in a neighboring town when it really hits her she could leave. Just board any train after taking out these overgrown rats she's been hired to kill and never go back, or go back to retrieve some belonging she'd rather not leave behind and then take off. The thought sinks into her like a physical blow; she bends over and has to take a moment to breathe it out, find her center of mass again. It's true. She's free, nothing is holding her back, she doesn't owe anyone a damn thing, she could beat it, she has the power, no one could stop her. She clutches her knees, inhales, reties her shoelaces to regain control of her body again.

Dante would trudge on without her, would not call, would not come looking after her. This much is certain. Probably wouldn't cry either. Lady would lose her golden goose and the one thing to ground her after her nightmares, but his contacts could be persuaded to follow her if she greased their palms. Everything in their world is for sale. The rain already stopped.

She remembers what he looked like in the middle of the rubble, his hair drawing a shadow on his face and illuminating it when pulled back. There's no chance it wouldn't haunt her. She wasn't there, but she wants to, now. Lady's gone and gotten herself involved.

She's come to care about him. It's old news. Fuck.

When she returns to the safe house, she's in for a second realization. Trish is curled up on the sofa next to a giant pile of women's magazines and a car repair manual, tells her she's happy to see her again so soon. Trish, who makes her own money by pulling her weight and thus could get her own lodgings − she, too, could scram. Somehow, Lady never gets around to suggesting it.

\--

"Does he ever," Trish speaks up. She chews her words and turns them around in her mouth for a while, not because she's looking for a subtle way to put it but because she's not quite sure what she's talking about.

"Does he what? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. You've seen the full extent of what he does by now," Lady remarks drily, not looking up from the rifle she's taking apart. The few occasions when the end of the world has landed on his doorstep aside, Dante leads an amazingly boring life for someone who does homicide for a living.

"Does he ever have intercourse with anyone? I mean, in the sexual capacity."

Lady sighs. She's thought about his mating habits and the lack of mating more than the healthy amount of "not at all", but she supposes curiosity is understandable. "As far as I know, no." What she knows goes much farther than she'd like, honestly.

Trish mulls over her response. It doesn't seem to have come as a surprise even though she'd obviously preferred to hear something else. Hopefully, she won't be sharing with the class if she's considered proposing him herself. "I'm having a hard time understanding it. He's attractive, so many would be willing to take him to bed. The bed he has is huge, it's going to waste if he doesn't sleep in it in any meaning of the term."

"You've been snooping around his bedroom?" Lady asks, focusing on side notes instead of the actual topic. Trish's slow smirk lets her know she's lost this round even before the reply. "Haven't you?"

"It isn't always that simple," she capitulates. She did, the first instance she could. His mattress _is_ huge. "Not with humans, at least. Don't tell me what demons do, I don't need the mental images."

"Hmm."

A couple of nights later, Trish announces she's going out to engage in sexual activities with a random individual found on the dance floor, in those exact terms. "Too much information, but good for you," Lady says, wishes her luck and forbids her from bringing back any test subjects or details. It dawns on her she hasn't hooked up with anyone in ages. She promises to get worried if she starts sounding like Dante too.

\--

Trish tries to take up other hobbies as well. Their missions grow longer since _DMC_ is still standing after the previous one and the next, but accepting one complicated project means more money than doing several entry-level jobs, thus there's more free time in between. The stove being portable sets limits to Trish's cooking experiments, visual arts are out of the question because Lady refuses to sniff paints and there's not enough space for martial arts, so reading's the handy choice, though. Seeing that her previous experiences with librarians are less than stellar, Lady may not be entirely comfortable with having so many books around, but banning them isn't right. She can't pinpoint the moment when she starts to think of her guest as an actual person, real people. It must be gradual. Like with Dante, it just happens and they've got to suck it up.

"What are you reading, anyhow? You're always so captivated by the stuff," she horns in one afternoon when they're waiting for a call.

Trish flips a page. "It's a fairytale. The book has many of those. I think I am learning a lot from them."

Lady decides not to mention she meant her reading materials in general, more broadly; it's her fault for not being specific enough. It's not that interesting anyway − she's occasionally eyed the backs of the piles but doesn't recognize any names and isn't curious enough to pry. Associating with Dante has taught her all the multisyllabic book words she needs, really. Ethics might not be her strong suit either, but wacky demon interpretations could still be good for a cheap laugh. "What's it about, then?"

"I haven't finished it yet so I cannot begin to guess; that information is only available at the end when the author reveals the morals. So far, there's been a mighty, benevolent king who loses his loving wife to an illness caused by the heavens − human physiology is so peculiar! Before she dies, she tells her husband to find himself a new spouse, this time someone who is both wiser and more beautiful than her. Apparently, the queen's wisdom lies in her thinking it's impossible to fullfil her last request, but that is factually incorrect. It's very easy, actually. Hmm. Currently, the king is planning to wed his daughter, who is indeed prettier than her mother, I'm told. There's no explanation why she is so frightened about this and tries to avoid it by consulting a fay she's related to too. I wonder if she helps the princess see her father is quite the catch. The marriage --"

"Trish," Lady says. Her voice sounds foreign in her own ears, calm. She remembers the first time Arkham called her by her mother's name. She'd thought he had slipped until he did it again, and again. "Get rid of the book. I don't want it here."

"Lady? But − why? We don't even know if there's a happy ending yet!"

“ _No incest._ Get that shit out of here, now. I'm not telling you a third time." There is nothing romantic about the reality of inbreeding. Just look at where it's gotten them; Dante has fallen apart at the seams because of it, and while she's left standing, she has the scars to prove just how much daddy loved her.

Happy ending? Don't make her laugh. Dante doesn't need that kind of ideas.

Recognizing what's good for her, Trish carries the book all the way down the stairs to trash it. When Lady takes a cursory look at her collection sometime later, it seems like the stacks have gotten a little thinner overall. Gee, how many stories about kissing cousins does one woman need. If she was in the least bit superstitious, she'd claim breathing gets a little easier after they've been disposed of. As it is, Lady gets Trish a copy of a joke book that a brunette who turned out to be a cold fish in the sack had tried to sell her once, not as an apology but as a suggestion: find worthwhile stuff to occupy yourself with, this isn't the hill you want to die on. She slips the tome into a pile and neither of them ever refers to it. Eventually, when it makes its way into an actual bookcase, its spine is decorated with cracks and colorful slips of paper stick out from between the pages. Stupid people believe in fairytale endings. They might as well laugh at them.

\--

It's true she's been feeling antsy, lately. Dante's run-in with his brother and the subsequent ill effects have brought the topic closer to the foreground. She had her questions and despite her involvement in the events, Trish wasn't able to answer the most of them. What made him like this? Pixies will explain sweet fuck all.

Was he molested? She wasn't, and she's the one she can thank for that, but she can't help feeling a sick twinge of sympathy at the thought. Something in her knows she would've never stood for anything beyond the regular type of physical violence, someone would've met their death if Arkham had touched her like Dante wishes to be touched now, but she's also aware that it happens. By whom − his mother, brother, the gardener, a parson? Fitting the theory together with the visible symptoms is a struggle. Stockholm syndrome, maybe? It's been established Lady doesn't really read. She did try, once upon a time. When the dreams were in an acute state, she found a publication about the psychology of childhood abuse. It… didn't have the effect she hoped it would, but that's neither here nor there. When she looks at Dante, what applies, what she remembers is that the children who have enjoyed some aspect of their exploitation in any way are those who become the guiltiest adults, not those who abhor every second of it and fight against the aggressor with all they've got.

What came first? The feelings or the remorse? Lady doesn't know Vergil but can see him taking advantage of Dante's emotions, which he should've been blind not to notice. She doesn't know him, but she detests him all the same and recognizes it's irrational of her. Wasting energy on hating people is useless, no matter how emphatically she won't ever be "forgiving" Arkham, laughs in the face of the entire concept. Still − if Vergil suffered as the corrupted form he'd been turned into, Lady can't claim to be overtly sorry for the poor, poor monster. No one deserves the treatment she got and Dante may have received as well, yet when Dante keeps flinching at his reflection year after year after year, she comes close to hoping Arkham had forced himself on Vergil so that he would've known what it's like to be powerless at someone else's hands. Squandered potential makes her angry; she'll never know what kind of person Dante could be if he didn't have a sibling to fuck it all up for him.

Just what did Dante see in his twin? There must've been something, a single redeeming quality that the bastard decided to sacrifice later on. Her initial judgement of his brother wasn't entirely correct, was it, not that she blames herself for making it. Who did he see in him, who did he think he was, who does he love to this day? "Narcissism" and "himself" are wrong answers when Lady's never come across anyone who hates themselves as bitterly as Dante does. Occasionally, it's as if he has no other emotions at all. Perhaps she's wrong and it's megalomania despite everything; maybe Dante really did believe he could redeem someone without a soul. Hope.

\--

Arkham saw her in Vergil. This discovery takes time to acknowledge and then some to digest. It's revolting in every possible way, that's a given. As much as it smarts to compare herself to a treacherous snake, as if she's suddenly looking to excuse his actions and regarding them as similar to hers, it seems necessary. Lady's not one to shy away from something useful just because it's unpleasant. She will feel better for it, be better.

What was it that lured Arkham to a new victim? The looks, yes, the youth, no question about that. Vulnerability, perceived or imaginary? No doubt. These are the easy answers.

For the most part, she wonders what it was because Dante has never seen it in her, he never had any interest in pursuing Lady. If she knew, she couldn't even remove it: she has to own her past. She's not him.

The perseverance, her face replies from a mirror with all its blemishes and victory signs. Arkham wouldn't have had much interest in Dante for all his muscle and beauty because ultimately, he's both weaker and stronger than her, bends and bends without ever coming to the tipping point, gives up, lies back, lets everybody walk all over him, thinks of England. It's more fun to break something that resists only to shatter all at once, a spectacularly brilliant failure.

Lady doesn't want to be Vergil, yet another person to abandon Dante. Their relationship's got to be mutually profitable or she bails, but till then, he'll have someone to watch over him.

\--

Trish gets better at conversing and other social customs. This is made more apparent by how Dante stays the same, regressed into an automaton pumped up with a handful of single-line monologues. He's at a stage where even Vergil wouldn't enjoy toying with him, and one of his coins would be as adept at telling if he realizes it himself as his long-time business associate, the closest he's got to a family member.

\--

Trish's self-determination reaches disturbing heights when she returns from the grocer's and, in the place of a general how-do-you-do, notes: "We should have sex." They way she says it, it's a statement of a fact.

Instead of chocking on the lovely stout she's been nursing or spitting it all out in surprise, Lady gets still and senses the beer trickle down her throat. Distantly, she feels a cog turn in her head too, but she has no idea what it's connected to.

"'Should'? Why?" The rationale seems like the thing to focus on. Trish sets down the plastic bags and explains to her it would be convenient, adding that she "needs a purpose" while shoveling the spoils of her trip into the minibar. Do they really need three cartons of milk?

“And this is it? Your purpose is to, I don't even know, to become a sex doll? What the fuck, Trish?"

“No. I want to feel useful." Lady is pleasantly surprised she doesn't voice the "you look like you could use it" she's thinking about so loudly. Trish is learning. Trish looks at her a lot, true, but it'd be hard not to in this box they've holed up in.

Lady could tell her she's not desperate, and even if she were, not desperate enough to date a demon. It got her nowhere with Dante and won't get her anywhere with her; Trish isn't applying for a girlfriend, she'd be quick to point that out. At this point, her being a part of the Sparda clan, kinda, seems like the bigger problem. Christ. "You look like his mom. It'd be weird."

Trish closes the fridge door. "Would you like me if I dyed my hair a different color?"

"Trish, lay off. I don't need you acting like I'm some fucking charity case or whatever this is."

"Well, the offer still stands if you change your mind later. Pizza today?"

\--

"How's he holding up?" Morrison asks her one day. He likes to savor his Cubans in company, but he hasn't been coming down to Dante's for a smoke due to obvious reasons for a while now, so Lady visits him under the common pretense of shop talk. It's not that far from truth when they're gossiping about Dante, he's an important asset and so on. Lady blinks when she realizes she has no idea how to answer, no matter if she's in the mood to be dishonest or speak the truth.

\--

Time comes when Dante disappears. As dire as things have been, it's a surprise.

\--

Dante is not coming back.

When you travel to remote places to slay people and creatures most don't believe in, it's normal that completing objectives might take its time. Dante going off by his lonesome is normal, and at first, they don't notice the alarm bells. He leaves a proper note this time and has stuck a pin into the globe on his desk to mark his location. It's far but not far enough that it'd take him more than a few days to return. A fortnight in, it's getting difficult to see past all the red flags. Big operations require planning in advance, she hasn't heard a word from him, not a single rumor is making rounds in the underworld; it's a small case, she reasons, and things have gone wrong. At first it's normal, then it's anything but.

Out of a mostly unvoiced agreement, they decide they'll stop waiting once he's been gone for six months and nothing's broken radio silence. Unlike some, Lady doesn't have the endurance not to move on. Six months and she'll stop waiting for him.

Lady measures the floor of the office with her steps and tries to envision what it'd be like to call it hers. She should call Morrison just in case, ask if Dante left behind a will. Every corner of _DMC_ is familiar to her; if there's a testament, it's somewhere else. It would make sense if he left the premises to her, yet she's unsure if she wants them, like this or in general. It might be easier to walk. She doesn't call. It feels final.

She's lost a benchmark, a comparison point, stability. She's angry. It's been three months.

They, Trish and her, have sex. There's not much to tell, it just happens. Her offer stands; her lipstick-red mouth is hot when she kisses her lips and even hotter when it finds its way down, makes the faded bullet scars on her inner thighs flush. She has clever fingers once she's been properly declawed and Lady can let them inside her, and she sighs prettily when pinned down from the wrists, and fuck her, it is convenient.

It's just sex, it's casual and means nothing, has no strings attached. That's why it's good for Lady. She's not stuck, frozen in place, "taken".

Four months after his disappearance, they take a spin on Trish's brand-new motorbike and, being out and about, decide to check up on _Devil May Cry_. Lady's not asking her why she's spending her earnings on wheels instead of an apartment because it isn't her role to interfere, just expresses concern about the chances of the chopper getting stolen in the disreputable neighborhood around the hideout. It's late; business hours are over like Trish keeps reminding her. The lights are out, the windows dark. Nobody's home. Nevertheless, there's something nagging at Lady. It's not paranoia when it turns out to be true.

The front door flies open and a woman rushes out in a red flash. That's the first thing that registers: the hideously unnatural hair color and the fact that no human moves like that. When the stranger halts and lets out a surprised yelp, her face twisting with sorrow, she has two guns pointed at her forehead.

"You're gonna have a little discussion with us if you want to keep your brain inside your skull. Tell us why you're here and what you did to him," Lady says slowly, pronouncing every threatening syllable with care and clicking off the safety of her pistol very loudly. Trish mirrors the movements by her side. There's a flare of electricity lighting up the air around her. Oh. The intruder's a demon too, then; Trish is sensing her energy and putting up her own wards. Lady ought to pull her necklace over her leather jacket if the vermin have become bold enough to ambush her on her home turf.

"I −," the stranger begins, then falls silent, her gaze shifting between the two of them. Her posture slumps. Foolish. If the housebreaker expects the gesture to endear her, supposedly the picture of harmlessness, to them, she's gravely mistaken.

"Where's Dante?" Lady presses, her nerves coiling tighter and tighter around the trigger.

"I don't know," she replies, a touch of desperation in her tone. The foreign accent is so thick that even such a simple sentence is almost lost in translation.

"Bullshit. Nobody comes here by accident and you're a fucking hellspawn. Something happened to him." It's not like they don't know already, can't put two and two together. Maybe it's better if they get a confirmation, though.

The redhead makes a sad face. "Ah, you are his friends. I see."

Trish cuts in before Lady manages to bash the expression into something far less condescending with the butt of her gun. "Start talking or we'll blow your head off. I can tell you're not strong enough to take us on, demon." She emphasizes her message by aiming another semiautomatic between the stranger's eyes, ice-cool and collected. She looks good like this, Lady might think under different circumstances. Dangerous.

Back against the wall as she is, the visitor is still refusing to defend herself. Her chin drops when she exhales the way people who've lost the last shreds of their optimism are wont to do. The hair falling over her eyes does nothing to hide how a single, dramatic tear is spilling over to her tanned cheek. "There isn't anything to tell," she says, the inward look in her eyes telling she's talking to herself now. "I came all the way here to make sure it's true with my own eyes, that he hasn't returned home. He has the demon powers so he would be here by now, and when I heard the motors, I thought − but I suppose I knew he didn't make it back."

Trish snarls. "That's not good enough! We know about that already, so you had better get into details…" Her indignation peters out when Lady lets her hands fall to her sides. She doesn't have to see Trish to be able to tell she's throwing a questioning look at her.

"Does it matter? He's gone. This isn't news to us, we really did know. Let her go or interrogate her if you want, I don't give a damn."

Lady regrets her decision, just a bit, when the woman throws a pitying glance at them as she slinks into the darkness. Bitch. She'll get what's coming for her one day if she keeps begging for it. 

Four months, then five. Trish stops spending her nights on the couch.

\--

Dante does come back.

"Ladies." He saunters in with an absent-minded greeting as if he's merely dropped by a convenience store. Lady's relief is drowned out by her rage. Through the humming between her ears, she hears Trish gasp. It's been five months and thirteen days.

He doesn't offer any real explanations, not that anyone expected him to. "Was on a mission," he says on his own initiative, having immediately made beeline to a safety box he's stashed under the sofa and dragging lines of mud all over the floor. When combing through its contents doesn't yield him the results he's after, he turns to a chest of drawers and makes a pleased noise when he finds the sack of phony coins. "Got it done, had to travel, am here now." What he doesn't say is as loud as his actual speech: I know that face, I can feel you making the face, why are you looking at me like that?

Lady hasn't budged or said a word to acknowledge him, just lets him feel the weight of her stare on his back. He knows what he's doing.

"Dante," she replies to his hellos as she watches him cram a handful of tokens in his pockets. An eventful trip, it appears.

He closes the doors and hovers on the spot without facing her. "Lady."

Somewhere next to her, Trish inhales sharply to signal she's about to butt in. Lady draws faster.

"It's been six months."

"Has it?" Dante says in a buoyant voice that implies he's either fully aware or has guessed about as much. He knows what he's done but lacks the means to address any of it.

She's spent too much time around him. Her ire deflates into disappointment she shouldn't be feeling in the first place. Did she hope he'd changed despite everything? Against her best judgment, yes. She did.

When Trish asks him what took him so long, Lady gets up from her chair in the corner and leaves. It's better that way for all of them and the business, that she goes away before she says something they'll regret. Her walking meal ticket walks the earth again, all's well that ends well.

Closing the door with pointed caution, she's not fast enough to escape Dante's non-reply. "Every hero has a weakness, Trish. Mine? Redheads."

\--

Trish has become perceptive enough not to try and start anything when she crawls into the apartment in her footsteps an hour or two later, just helps her empty the bottles of wine she's uncorked in the meantime. If Lady felt more gracious, she might be impressed. As matters currently stand, she pours her a glass and lets her scoot next to her on the sofa. With Trish, idling around is different; she's quiet but present in a mildly curious way, and it's taken her a while to get used to it, to notice it's not obtrusive.

On the third night, Lady lets her join her in the bedroom. Why not? Dante coming back hasn't changed things, after all.

\--

"I'm going out tonight," Trish informs her bluntly. It's been approximately five days since the incident, she hasn't really been keeping a record.

"Sure, whatever," Lady replies. She's not her keeper anymore. Trish is a big girl, she can do what or whom she wants. Demons don't even have to worry about protection, diseases or unwanted pregnancies, and wow, she's getting way too savvy about this shit.

She feels her stare bore into the back of her head. Trish speaks very, very slowly and carefully, like talking to a simpleton, or to Dante. "I will go out and won't come back until two o'clock at night, Lady."

Lady waves a dismissive hand at her. She lets out a nettled sigh, then forges ahead. "I will be hanging out in the ritzy new bar downtown to find out if the hearsay about it being haunted holds true. So if you have any business you'd like to attend to solo, I won't be there. You know, anywhere near our usual territory, the old industrial district."

"You've still got to work on your subtlety, sugar," Lady snarks without looking up from her notebook. No wonder she's about as discreet as a bull in a china shop when she's essentially grown up among explosive personalities and literal explosives. There are many things that could and maybe should be said about her and Dante, but currently, the only topic she's willing to touch is him still owing her ten grand plus interest for the insurance premiums alone.

Trish lets out a flowing laugh, suddenly delighted. Now Lady's eyes do snap to meet hers. She's been trying out facial expressions lately, donning various grins and smirks like dresses. For the first time, her amusement seems spontaneous enough to be sincere. "Subtlety? What for? It would just be lost on you and Dante."

Lady can't fault her for the stupid joke when she can feel her mouth crook into a small smile. Huh.

At seven o'clock, she's sitting in the armchair she's been dubbing hers forever and a day and watching Dante keeping his hands busy with bottles and glasses so that he won't be wringing them nonstop. His awkwardness is the incredulous sort today. It's blatant he'd be more comfortable if she had fucked off for good after his latest stunt; this is clear evidence of someone giving a damn about him, which is not something he can handle with grace.

The clock ticks. “I visited Hell,” he says.

He swallows, continues. "Could've been just limbo, dunno. I'm not an expert." They both ignore the following pause and the identity of "the expert" they're both thinking of. Vergil leaves but won't go away.

There's every reason to tread lightly. Dante's in a weird, fragile mood. Nothing has led her to believe he's using euphemisms and being metaphorical about the truth, lying.

“What was it like?” she asks. Tick, tick, tick, says the time.

“Empty,” he says eventually. 

“You came back,” she states and asks.

“Yeah.”

She downs the last of her drink, wondering if he'd really believed he'd find any remains. Dante gets up and gets her her nth second helping, sits on the ground next to her. The alcohol swirls in their glasses and her head, the clock hammers on. She's still so angry.

“I wasn't sure I would,” he admits.

His right hand fidgets with a coin. Head, tails, up and down. Out of the blue, it occurs to her Dante has been extremely careful to always wear gloves. It isn't something she's been consciously aware of, but now that she looks back, the pattern is flawless. She's seen him buck naked, every square inch from his chest to his ass and toes over the years, his dick, yes, but not his palms. The hand that now rests on his lap is bare. Dante himself seems like he doesn't notice. His left palm lies open on his leg as if it had nothing to hide; she has a hard time telling whether he's too drunk to notice or it's intentional, if he's allowing her to see. She's seen him stabbed through his stomach, his neck torn open, bleeding, holes in his forehead, shoving his intestines inside himself. This upsets her more, a small thin scar splitting the skin in two. It's more widescale.

She doesn't need to ask to know why, but she wishes she did. As Dante blathers on about something completely unrelated, she stares. A minute passes, becomes two. His voice tightens little by little until it snaps. Dante abandons the pretext, breathes tersely, says: "I have to bury myself, there is nothing else for me to --." Now his tone is calm if pained, but it gives out in the middle, as if it has nowhere to go from there.

She wants to see anger from him. It would be healthy, he should get it out of his system, she wouldn't even mind if it was directed at her. What Vergil did to him always runs deeper than imagined, yet she can't make him mad at anyone else but himself. Dante will only destroy himself, either by inaction or active self-hatred.

Lady tells him the truth, a version of it. She doesn't do it gently; it's not them. "Your guilt has as much value as that coin." Yet you take it with a smile and let it erase you.

Dante is silent for a long time. It's one of the rare quiet moments they ever share with ease. Usually, Lady finds comfort in his constant babbling, their pasts of bad touches and betrayals momentarily pushed back. When he speaks, he sounds entirely too sober.

"I know."

In the grand scheme of things, all this − the aftermath − is a single blip on the radar. It's a phase, basically. Cornered, Dante defaults to his old habits after a brief stint of panicking. Lady once broke a porcelain vase as a kid, glued it back together and tried to paint over the cracks. She got beaten up for it anyway, but that's beside the point. No, the point is she knows a quick fix when she sees it. It's merely taken Dante some time to tape the pieces into a shape that resembles his previous frame. The work is sloppy, that's all. This isn't healing. 

Dante, a little less intact and more damaged than he used to be, sheds his skin to become what he was when they met. A bloody phoenix. She sees a loop closing and wonders how many times he's done this before.

\--

Things don't really get better after that, the appearances do. Dante readopts his teenaged persona brick by brick and jibe by jibe until an easy, loose grin appears on his face at the pull of a trigger, as if it'd never left, as if it didn't remember a time when his eyes joined it to form a genuine expression. Outfits come and go, his pretension gets progressively more flamboyant. He eats up the attention it gains him and retreats further into himself behind it; the more open his behavior seems to become, the less there is of him to see. Lady can't tell what he thinks. Lady can't tell if he thinks. The surface-level life is the new normal, a funhouse mirror of the decade after the tower; she's never seen anyone adapt like that and hopefully never has to again. Dante's got to be a survivor because there is nothing else for him to be, and it's easier for all of them to bear than his apathetic comas, and it's wrong. Ten years pass between the landmarks. When she focuses on individual moments, their existence is measured in seconds and faked grins, but time trickles past her fingers gunshot-fast if she lets go. At some point, they've moved out into one of Lady's bigger apartments, she doesn't remember there being a conversation, and _DMC_ has acquired new neons. Money, as always, is good for her.

Ten years pass. Then Dante gets an obsession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fairytale referenced by Trish and banned by Lady is Perrault's Peau-d' Ane.


End file.
